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ENGLISH POEMS 



FROM THE 

COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS 

IN ENGLISH 



EDITED BY 

VIDA D. SCUDDER, M.A. 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE 



SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 



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Copyright 1912, 1915 

BY 

Scott, Foresman and Company 







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AUG 23 1915 

©CU411179 



PEEFATOEY NOTE 

The selections in this volume include the majority of 
the shorter poems demanded by the College Entrance Ee- 
quirements in English. They are presented in this form 
because it was judged that one volume of reasonable size 
would be more convenient for both teachers and students 
than a series of very thin volumes. 

VlDA D, SCUDDER. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Prefatory Note 5 

Alexander Pope — Biographical Sketch 9 

Text: 

The Eape of the Lock 25 

Notes to the Eape of the Lock 52 

Thomas Gray — Biographical Sketch 57 

Text: 

Elegy, Written in a Country Churchyard 74 

Notes to the Elegy 79 

Oliver Goldsmith — Biographical Sketch 85 

Text: 

The Traveller 98 

The Deserted Village. 115 

Notes to the Traveller 130 

Notes to the Deserted Village 134 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Biographical Sketch 141 

Text: 

Christabel 157 

Kubla Khan 181 

Notes to Christabel 18*5 

Notes to Kubla Khan 190 

Lord Byron — Biographical Sketch 191 

Text: 

The Prisoner of Chillon 207 

Childe Harold— Canto III 221 

Childe Harold— Canto IV 264 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Notes to the Prisoner of Chillon 328 

Notes to Childe Harold — Canto III 331 

Notes to Childe Harold — Canto IV 337 

Lord Macaulay — Biographical Sketch 359 

Text : 

Horatius 380 

The Battle of the Lake Eegillus 403 

Virginia 433 

The Prophecy of Capys 452 

Ivry 467 

The Armada 459 

The Battle of Naseby 476 

Notes on the Lays of Ancient Kome 480 

Notes to Ivry 498 

Notes to the Armada 499 

Notes to the Battle of Naseby 500 

Matthew Arnold — Biographical Sketch 503 

Text: 

The Forsaken Merman 516 

Sohrab and Eustum 521 

Notes to Sohrab and Eustum 549 



ALEXANDER POPE 



ALEXANDER POPE. 1688-1744. 
I. 

Our first selection in this volume takes us into Eng- 
lish life a little -over two hundred years ago. Queen 
Elizabeth has been dead a hundred and nine years, 
Shakespeare ninety-six. The Renaissance has spent 
its force, the civil wars between Cavalier and Puritan 
which had wrecked England during the central seven- 
teenth century are over, and the last Stuart has worn 
an English crown. England since 1688 has been a 
constitutional monarchy. Queen Anne is now on the 
throne; Addison and Steele are just about to estab- 
lish The Tatler and The Spectator. Swift, an older 
man, greatest of our satirists, has already written The 
Tale of a Tub, and is about to throw himself energet- 
ically into politics; but he will not publish Gulliver's 
Travels for fourteen years. The rising poet is a young 
man twenty-four years old, Alexander Pope; every 
one is reading his Rape of the Lock, that clever society 
poem which is so amazingly well-written, and hits off 
in such an entertaining way a number of well-known 
people. 

From the time when this poem was written till the 
end of his life, Pope remained the true representative 
of the tastes and standards of his day. He was the 
poet of a time that had turned away, bored and sated, 
from romance, from passion, faith, and devotion to 
beauty, toward clear thinking, keen observation, and 
accurate and clever expression. We twentieth cen- 
11 



12 SHORTEK ENGLISH POEMS 

tury folk have undergone another reaction in taste. 
It seems to us that either the age of Shakespeare or 
that of Wordsworth produced greater poets than that 
of Pope. But there is still much for us to enjoy in 
the literature of what is called the Age of Prose and 
Reason, or the Pseudo-Classic Age ; and we have im- 
portant things to learn from it. 

Pope was born in 1688, the year of that Revolution 
which finally established England as a country under 
Protestant rule. His father, a retired linen-draper, 
was a Roman Catholic, and the family faith shut the 
boy off from the usual education of an English gentle- 
man, which in those intolerant days was open only to 
Protestants. Perhaps he did not lose much by being 
self-educated. At all events, when he was only a tiny 
fellow, he already showed that absorbing enthusiasm 
for letters and the intellectual life which he was never 
to lose. Literary work was the object and central 
interest of Pope's entire career. Milton laid aside 
his poetic pen for twenty long years of his maturity, 
in order to serve his country. Shakespeare wrote his 
plays partly, at least, for practical reasons. But 
Pope lived only to write, and there is little story to 
tell of him beyond the story of his life-long devotion. 

The boy "lisped in numbers, for the numbers 
came." When eight years old, he was already read- 
ing the classics lovingly, and making translations 
from the Latin poet, Statins. At twelve, he wrote 
four thousand lines of an epic, and it is significant 
of the early ripening of his powers that he used lines 
from this epic toward the end of his life, in his great- 
est work, The Dunciad. When only sixteen, he pub- 



ALEXANDEB POPE 13 

lished a series of "Pastorals" which at once gave him 
literary standing in the eyes of his contemporaries. 
We may be allowed today to find these poems artificial 
and flat; yet we shall not do amiss if we ask how 
many lads of sixteen could now show such unfailing 
accuracy in the use of metre, such choice mastery of 
diction, or could write with such fluent ease and grace. 

From this time till his death in 1744, Pope worked 
at his chosen art; practicing what the times called 
"niceties of versification," ardently polishing his 
lines, and turning them with equal deftness, no matter 
what subject engaged his attention. 

The literary life of the age was far more concen- 
trated than it is now. It centred in London, and 
the authors of the day all knew one another more or 
less intimately. They formed little coteries, often 
marked by bitter rivalry, the members of which met 
for keen interchange of wit and gossip at the various 
coffee houses or clubs, where politics, literature, and 
religion were the great topics of discussion. Pope 
tried to share this gay, exciting life of "the Town," 
but he was not strong enough for it. He withdrew 
into a certain amount of seclusion, in his beloved 
country-house at Twickenham, on the banks of the 
Thames, and here the world found him out, for he 
was a very famous man; here, till his death at the 
age of fifty-six, he passed his time, writing his books, 
amusing himself by laying out his garden in the fan- 
tastic taste of his time, and busily entertaining his 
friends; discussing philosophy with Bolingbroke, or 
literature with Swift, and too often, more's the pity, 
wasting his energy on some personal quarrel or con- 



14 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

troversy which embittered his spirit and added venom 
to his pen. 

Pope is a vivid personality to us still. He was a 
sickly and puny little man, bald-headed and deformed, 
inclined in youth to hypochondria, and always af- 
flicted with extreme nervous sensitiveness and excita- 
bility. He was capricious, jealous, and self-centred; 
capable of sharp, unreasonable suspicions and antag- 
onisms ; and he took cruel reprisals on his adversaries 
with his clever verses. But when we are tempted to 
distress by the petulance and acrimony which he 
sometimes showed, we must remember how much he 
constantly suffered. One can not read of him without 
compassion, or without respect for the delicacy and 
dignity of his reticence concerning his personal ills. 
There is also a fine side to his character. He was a 
devoted son, who nursed with unfailing tenderness 
the last years of his aged mother. To the few people 
whom he trusted, like Swift, Gay, and his honored 
friend, Martha Blount, he showed a staunch and loyal 
affection. Above all, we must respect his disinter- 
ested and steady service to the cause of letters. 

In religion, Pope never nominally deserted the faith 
of his fathers; but his writings show that his real 
sympathy was with the facile Deist philosophy of the 
time, which he immortalized in the Essay on Man. 
No one now would consider this a great philosophical 
poem, or rank Pope as a profound thinker. But he 
was a clever and honest man, and an admirable writer. 
Was he also a great poet ? His own age thought so ; 
Lord Byron thought so. Today, every reader must 
decide the question for himself. 



ALEXANDER POPE 15 

II. 

When Pope- was very young a critic, William 
Walshe, had given him a piece of advice which influ- 
enced him greatly. He told Pope that "there was 
one way still left open by which he might excel any 
of his predecessors, which was by correctness; that 
although we had had several great poets, we ' as yet 
could boast of none that were perfectly correct, there- 
fore he advised him to make this quality his particular 
study." Correctness may seem a pedestrian aim for 
a poet; originality, emotion, beauty, the thrill of an 
intenser life, are what most of us seek in poetry. 
But to Pope, correctness meant the same thing as 
perfection, and we can recognize something fine and 
elevated in the painstaking enthusiasm which sought 
to express perfectly what is already known, rather 
than to record a personal experience, or to press into 
undiscovered regions. Our poetry, which had often 
been extravagant and obscure during the great period 
of the Renaissance, needed just what Pope, following 
his predecessor, Dryden, sought to give it: grace, 
ease, precision, and conciseness of utterance, the con- 
trol of vagaries, the mastery involved in perfect art. 
Nine-tenths of Pope's work, exclusive of his long 
translations, was written in one verse-form, the heroic 
couplet. He did not invent the couplet; Dryden, 
before his day, had established it as the favorite and 
dominant form ; but Pope polished it. He could not 
endow it with more rhetorical force than Dryden had 
done, but in his hands it gained a more unfailing 
point and flash. The great romantic period which 
preceded the Pseudo-Classic Age had revelled in blank 



16 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

verse and in variety of lyric movements. Pope's ti 
cared nothing for variety, in style or substance, 
turned away from the rich and free tradition of Enj 
lish poetry, studied French or Latin models, soug 
formal excellence rather than originality, assumec 
that there must be one best and most expressive in 
strument in poetry, and, convinced that it had foun 
this instrument in the couplet, used that couplet for 
every conceivable purpose. Nor, from its point o" 
view, was it wholly wrong. The century did no 
care to roam far afield, or to probe very deep for its 
subjects. It liked transcripts from life, moral discus- 
sion, mild philosophy, satire. For all these, the heroic 
couplet was an excellent vehicle. So men confined 
themselves to it, and tried to polish this verse-form 
of their predilection to the last point of conciseness 
and brilliancy. In this aim, Pope succeeded above 
all others. He is the most quotable of authors. It j 1 
is a good exercise to select epigrams from his works, 
such as the Essay on Criticism or the Essay on Man, 
and then try to convey his idea in one's own words. | 
One finds how extreme was the care with which he 
selected his phrases and compressed what he had tc 
say into the smallest possible compass, so that the 
thought is presented with the exact symmetry an 
finish of a mathematical proposition. 

For forms of government let fools contest. 

Whatever is best administered is best. 

Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine, 

Gives thee to make thy neighbor's blessing thine. 

It is suggestive to compare Pope's early work, the 
Pastorals, all written in rhymed couplets, with the 



ALEXANDEK POPE 17 

^parallel work of Spenser's youth, his Shepheard's 
P Calendar. Spenser's work draws in a way on the 
i same tradition as Pope's; but its interest consists 
" chiefly in the poet's eager experiments with different 
I metres. His pipes discourse sweet varied music, while 
i Pope's grind out one perpetual tune, monotonous 
3 enough to weary a shepherdess in the most decorous 
* r of Arcadias. Yet this tune is rendered with a fine- 
•* ness of ear and surety of touch which yield a delight 
jV of their own. 

The first period of Pope 's activity lasts from 1709, 
when the Pastorals were published, to 1715. His chief 
works during this period were a poem on Windsor 
Forest, an Essay on Criticism, and The Rape of the 
Lock (1712). The poem on Windsor Forest is chiefly 
interesting because it shows that Pope, like most men 
of his day, cared not a whit for natural beauty, and 
had never really looked at a woods. The Essay on 
■ Criticism adapted many maxims from the French 
Boileau, and added others derived from his own com- 
mon sense. No dream of beauty or of splendid deeds 
'■ stirred the youthful Pope, but considerations about 
"' literature. 

Those Eules of old discovered, not devised, 
Are Nature still, but Nature methodized. 
A little learning is a dangerous thing, 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. 

A series of neat, sententious couplets like these con- 
stitute the poem; admirably terse and quotable, but 
strange utterance for a youthful poet. 

The Rape of the Lock followed within a year, and 
in this first and most kindly of his satires, Pope found 



18 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

his true field. For it was as a satirical poet that he 
was to attain the full play of his powers. He, in 
common with his time, was much interested in ideas ; 
and poems like the Essay on Criticism and the Essay 
on Man reflect the didactic and moralizing tone of 
the age. But since he was human he was really far 
more interested in people, and, being interested in 
them rather through the brain than through the heart, 
he naturally turned to satire. Pope's epigrammatic 
morality and deftly turned critical axioms have an 
enduring worth, but his satirical poems are the best 
heritage he has left us. 

Before we consider his later work, however, we 
must mention his translations. From boyhood, the 
classics had been the chief object of his veneration, 
and he now set himself to turning the Iliad into Eng- 
lish verse, — using heroic couplets, of course. The 
first four books, published in 1715, were a brilliant 
success, and he continued till he had presented both 
the Iliad and the Odyssey to the public, although in 
translating the Odyssey he enlisted the help of other 
writers. These translations brought him a great deal 
of money. Milton was paid ten pounds for the first 
edition of Paradise Lost. Pope received for his 
Homeric translations eight thousand pounds, and the 
world would now let them all go rather than lose a 
single book of Paradise Lost. The difference between 
real values and money values could not be better 
illustrated; yet Pope's translations are admirable in 
their way, though no one would now claim that they 
represent the true spirit of the Greeks. 

The remainder of Pope's work falls into the two 






ALEXANDEK POPE 19 

main divisions of didactic poems and satires, although 
the two divisions overlap. On the whole, the Moral 
Essays, including the famous Essay on Man, yield in 
vitality to the Satires, which have more concrete and 
personal value. Sometimes, indeed, we may consider 
the Satires too personal. Pope thought, as the satirist 
always does, that he was defending morality and at- 
tacking vice. In reality, he was too often satisfying 
a personal grudge. But however much we may be 
pained at the occasional pettiness or cruelty of his 
tone, we cannot help enjoying his unsparing pene- 
tration into human weakness, and the veracity of 
his types. Age cannot wither such workmanship. In 
Pope's Satires, the genius of the time sparkles as 
brightly and as coldly as when they were first written. 
Where all is excellent, it is hard to select passages 
for comment, but we may single out for mention the 
Epistle to Dr. Arouthnot, which contains the scathing 
portrait of Pope's erewhile friend, the dignified and 
kindly Addison. 

The greatest of Pope's poems, however, is unques- 
tionably a satire of more general type, — The Dunciad. 
This was published in 1728, the second edition, which 
quickly followed the first, being dedicated to Swift. 
It is a mock-heroic epic, full of caustic contemporary 
portraits, but rising into dignity through the general 
scheme to which these portraits are merely incidental. 
The whole poem is an attack on Stupidity. It is 
excruciatingly funny sometimes, but it is much more 
than funny. To view one's personal enemies as 
dunces is doubtless very mean and narrow, but Pope 's 
unfortunate butts are forgotten now-a-days, except 



20 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

as they are transformed by his scintillating pen into 
immortal types; and the poet, in attacking that Dull- 
ness which to his mind was the. greatest enemy of 
the human race, and in exalting by implication the 
intellectual power which commanded his fullest de- 
votion, has risen to heights of imaginative insight 
and creative force that he has nowhere else attained. 

III. 

If The Dunciad is the greatest of Pope's Satires, 
and hence of his poems, The Rape of the Lock is the 
most popular, readable, and delightful. It was the 
work of his youth, and there is more fantasy and 
less didacticism in it than in any of his later writings. 
It is satirical, but the satire is untouched by a sneer, 
or touched so delicately that the hint of bitterness 
only adds to the flavor. The poem is a skit on the 
society life of the time. Miss Arabella Fermor, a pretty, 
fashionable girl, was much annoyed because a certain 
Lord Petre had snipped off in fun a lock of her hair. 
Her family and his had quarrelled in consequence, 
and Pope wrote, hoping by his good-humored verse 
to heal the breach between them. As first written, 
the poem included only two cantos. Pope later en- 
larged it by adding the charming " machinery" of 
the Sylphs; he did this contrary to Addison's advice, 
and Addison's disapproval of the proposed change 
may have been the cause of Pope's break with him. 
It was a pity that they quarrelled. Addison was 
mistaken, for we could ill spare the Sylphs; but no 
one can wonder at his honest opinion, given in ad- 
vance, before he could tell what Pope would make 
of them. 



ALEXANDER POPE 21 

In one sense, The Rape of the Loch may be viewed 
as the romantic epic of the age of Queen Anne ; at 
least, if this poem will not serve, the age has no other. 
It bears the same relation to its time that the Faerie 
Queene of Spenser bears to the age of Elizabeth ■ and 
the fact that it is a burlesque only goes to reinforce 
the point. 

And, if one so takes it, how striking is the fact that 
through the whole poem we never escape into the 
region of either romance or epic at all ! No Gloriana, 
queen of faerie, rules us here, — only "great Anna, 
whom three realms obey." The "action" is a squab- 
ble, the weapons bodkins and scissors. In no part 
of the poem do we get so clear a sense of the qualities 
and manners of the age as in the professedly super- 
natural portions. Through their occupations, their 
interests, their punishments, the airy Sylphs, touched 
with Pope's most demure and dainty pen, witness as 
no flesh and blood personages could do to the im- 
prisonment of eighteenth century fancy within the 
habits of the day. The evil powers who launch dis- 
aster are the enemies of fashionable life, — Spleen, or 
moroseness, with her attendants, Headache and Ill- 
health, Affectation and Ill-nature. One has only to 
compare Pope's Ariel with the Ariel of Shakespeare, 
as to nature and function, to realize the contrast be- 
tween an imagination voluntarily earthbound, and 
one that soars free in skyey space. 

This sort of supernatural machinery is, of course, 
part of the imitation of the genuine epic, and one's 
pleasure in reading The Rape of the Lock is much 
keener if one has some knowledge of the original type 



22 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

which Pope is burlesquing. All the proportions of 
the epic are here, reduced to the purposes of gal- 
lantry and realism: the pompous Introduction, with 
its appeal to the muse, the careful development of 
the action, the deed and its reprisals, the climax and 
catastrophe, worked out with a finish that extends to 
the last detail, yet with an effect of spontaneity that 
is the last triumph of conscious art. Nothing could 
catch the grand tone more effectively, more funnily, 
than such passages as the sacrifice of the Baron with 
his Altar "of twelve vast French romances, neatly 
gilt, ' ' than his Oath, or than the appeal of Umbriel 
to Spleen. Indeed, the mock-heroic tone is carried 
out without faltering, and the piquant contrast be- 
tween the assumed grandeur and the real pettiness is 
in the. choicest vein of raillery. 

The neat turns of phrase, the clever innuendoes, 
the polish and sparkle of the verse, each student must 
discover for himself, by line to line scrutiny. The 
Rape of the Lock is an excellent poem for group study 
also; it has charm, but a charm not too elusive for 
analysis nor too lofty to discuss. In the devices used, 
two recur most constantly : anti-climax and antithesis. 
Antithesis indeed is the life of the heroic couplet. It 
can easily degenerate into a trick; Pope himself de- 
scribes to us a certain literary man, 

His wit all see-saw between That and This, 
And he himself one vile antithesis. 

Sometimes, even in The Rape of the Lock, his own use 
of the figure annoys us by its perpetual iteration, yet 
we cannot as a rule deny its neatness, effectiveness, 



ALEXANDEK POPE 23 

and point. In this poem, it is continually blended 
with anti-climax, so soberly, so consistently carried 
out that it attains with inimitable success Pope 's end, 
of belittling the important and exalting the petty. 

Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast, 
When husbands, or when lap-dogs, breathe their last; 
Or when rich China vessels fall'n from high, 
In glitt'ring dust and painted fragments lie! 

Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive, 
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, 
Not ardent lovers robbed of all their bliss, 
Not ancient ladies when refused a kiss, 
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, 
Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry, 
E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair, 
As thou, sad virgin! for thy ravished hair. 

This is epic in Looking- Glass Land, with all the 
emphasis reversed. By no other style probably 
could we gain so entertaining and felicitous a con- 
ception of the sentiments and customs of the period. 
Through its mock solemnity, the prosaic details of 
worldly life are invested with a certain glamor, even 
while we realize their absurdity. And our laughter 
is without meanness. Some people, to be sure, resent 
the patronizing attitude toward women, and find a 
concealed slight beneath the affected language of gal- 
lantry and compliment. But surely this is to break 
a butterfly on the wheel. It is not a poem to appeal 
to a suffragette, and perhaps no writer now-a-days, 
speaking of women, would indite such a line as that 
about "The moving Toy-shop of their heart.' ' But 
toward "The Fair" Pope simply took the ordinary 
playful tone of his age, the tone of Addison ; and cer- 



24 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

tainly Sir Plume is less an ornament to the one sex 
than Belinda to the other! 

Is The Rape of the Lock poetry? Yes, if sensitive 
workmanship, bright fancy, and happy delineation of 
an attractive phase of life can make a poem. The 
Belle, lingering over her toilet and her tea, the Beau 

of amber snuff-box justly vain, 
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane 

are less inspiring figures than Spenser's St. George 
fighting his dragon, or his sweet Una on her snow- 
white ass ; but they have their own place in the richly- 
peopled world of the imagination. At all events, the 
poem is nearer poetry than most things which Pope 
wrote, for it is less didactic and more concrete. No 
one would claim for it the highest imaginative quali- 
ties ; but it is conceived with true delicacy of glancing 
and fantastic invention, and is carried out with deft 
precision. It is poetry, as the ivory fan of a belle 
of the period, or the snuff-box of a beau, painted in 
miniature with fine touches of pure gay color, may 
be art, Raphael and Leonardo are the great masters ; 
but the fans and snuff-boxes too are treasured in 
museums, for into these also something of life's pre- 
ciousness has passed. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 

AN HEROI-COMICAL POEM. 

Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos ; 
Sed juvat,-hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. 

Martial. 

TO MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR. 

Madam, — It will be in vain to deny that I have 
some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to you. 
Yet you may bear me witness it was intended only to 
divert a few young ladies, who have good sense and 
good humor enough to laugh not only at their sex's 
little unguarded follies, but at their own. But as it 
was communicated with the air of a secret, it soon 
found its way into the world. An imperfect copy 
having been offer 'd to a bookseller, you had the good- 
nature for my sake to consent to the publication of 
one more correct : This I was fore 'd to, before I had 
executed half my design, for the Machinery was 
entirely wanting to complete it. 

The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the 
critics to signify that part which the Deities, Angels, 
or Demons are made to act in a poem ; for the ancient 
poets are in one respect like many modern ladies : let 
an action be never so trivial in itself, they always 
make it appear of the utmost importance. These 
Machines I determined to raise, on a very new and 
odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of Spirits, 

I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard 
words before a lady; but 'tis so much the concern 
25 



26 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

of a poet to have his works understood, and particu- 
larly by your sex, that you must give me leave to 
explain two or three difficult terms. The Rosicru- 
cians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. 
The best account I know of them is in a French book 
call'd Le Comte de Gabalis, which both in its title and 
size is so like a novel that many of the fair sex have 
read it for one by mistake. According to these gen- 
tlemen, the four elements are inhabited by Spirits, 
which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Sala- 
manders. The Gnomes, or daemons of Earth, delight 
in mischief; but the Sylphs, whose habitation is in 
the air, are the best conditioned creatures imaginable. 
For they say, any mortals may enjoy the most inti- 
mate familiarities with these gentle spirits, upon a 
condition very easy to all true adepts, an inviolate 
preservation of chastity. 

As to the following Cantos, all the personages of 
them are as fabulous as the Vision at the beginning, 
or the Transformation at the end (except the loss of 
your hair, which I always mention with reverence). 
The human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; 
and the character of Belinda, as it is now managed, 
resembles you in nothing but in beauty. 

If this poem had as many graces as there are in 
your person or in your mind, yet I could never hope 
it would pass through the world half so uncensur'cl 
as you have done. But let its fortune be what it will, 
mine is happy enough to have given me this occasion 
of assuring you that I am, with the truest esteem, 
Madam, Your most obedient, humble servant, 

A. Pope. 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 27 

CANTO I. 

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, 

What mighty contests rise from trivial things, 

I sing. This verse to Caryl, Muse ! is due : 

This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view: 
5 Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, 

If she inspire, and he approve my lays. 

Say what strange motive, Goddess ! could compel 

A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle? 

say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd, 
.0 Could make a gentle belle reject a lord? 

In tasks so bold, can little man engage, 

And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage? 
Sol thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray, 

And op'd those eyes that must eclipse the day; 
15 Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, 

And sleepless lovers just at twelve awake; 

Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock 'd the ground, 

And the press 'd watch return 'd a silver sound. 

Belinda still her downy pillow prest, 
20 Her guardian Sylph prolong 'd the balmy rest : 

'Twas he had summon 'd to her silent bed 

The morning dream that hover 'd o'er her head; 

A youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau, 

(That ev'n in slumber caused her cheek to glow) 
25 Seem'd to her ear his winning lips to lay, 

And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say: 
"Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish 'd care 

Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air! 

If e'er one vision touch 'd thy infant thought, 
30 Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught — 

Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, 



28 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

The silver token, and the circled green, 

Or virgins visited by Angel-pow'rs, 

With golden crowns and wreaths of heav 'nly flow 'rs — 
35 Hear and believe ! thy own importance know, 

Nor bound thy narrow views to things below. 

Some secret truths, from learned pride conceal'd, 

To maids alone and children are reveal'd. 

What tho' no credit doubting Wits may give? 
40 The fair and innocent shall still believe. 

Know, then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly, 

The light militia of the lower sky : 

These, tho' unseen, are ever on the wing, 

Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring. 
45 Think what an equipage thou hast in air, 

And view with scorn two pages and a chair. 

As now your own, our beings were of old, 

And once inclos 'd in woman 's beauteous mould ; 

Thence, by a soft transition, we repair 
bo From earthly vehicles to these of air. 

Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled, 

That all her vanities at once are dead ; 

Succeeding vanities she still regards, 

And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards. 
55 Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, 

And love of Ombre, after death survive. 

For when the Fair in all their pride expire, 

To their first elements their souls retire. 

The sprites of fiery termagants in flame 
60 Mount up, and take a salamander's name. 

Soft yielding minds to water glide away, 

And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea. 

The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome, 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK 29 

In search of mischief still on earth to roam. 
; The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, 

And sport and flutter in the fields of air. 
' ' Know further yet : whoever fair and chaste 

Rejects mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd; 

For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease 
) Assume what sexes and what shapes they please. 

What guards the purity of melting maids, 

In courtly balls and midnight masquerades, 

Safe from the treacherous friend, the daring spark, 

The glance by day, the whisper in the dark, 
5 When kind occasion prompts their warm desires, 

When music softens, and when dancing fires? 

"lis but their Sylph, the wise celestials know, 

Tho' honor is the word with men below. 

Some nymphs there are too conscious of their face, 
o For life predestin'd to the Gnome's embrace. 

These swell their prospects and exalt their pride, 

When offers are disdain 'd, and love deny'd; 

Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain, 

While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train, 
5 And garters, stars, and coronets appear, 

And in soft sounds, 'Your Grace' salutes their ear. 

'Tis these that early taint the female soul, 

Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll, 

Teach infant-cheeks a hidden blush to know, 
'0 And little hearts to flutter at a Beau. 

"Oft, when the world imagine women stray, 

The Sylphs thro' mystic mazes guide their way; 

Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue, 

And old impertinence expel by new. 
»5 What tender maid but must a victim fall 



30 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

To one man's 'treat, but for another's ball, 

"When Florio speaks what virgin could withstand, 

If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand? 

With varying vanities, from ev'ry part, 
100 They shift the moving toyshop of their heart ; 

Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots 
strive, 

Beaus banish beaus, and coaches coaches drive. 

This erring mortals levity may call; 

Oh blind to truth ! the Sylphs contrive it all. 
105 "Of these am I, who thy protection claim, 

A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name. 

Late, as I rang'd the crystal wilds of air, 

In the clear mirror of thy ruling star 

I saw, alas ! some dread event impend, 
no Ere to the main this morning sun descend, 

But heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where. 

Warn 'd by the Sylph, oh pious maid, beware ! 

This to disclose is all thy guardian can : 

Beware of all, but most beware of Man ! ' ' 
us He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too 
long, 

Leap'd up, and wak'd his mistress with his tongue. 

'Twas then, Belinda! if report say true, 

Thy eyes first open 'd on a billet-doux ; 

Wounds, charms, and ardors were no sooner read, 
120 But all the vision vanish 'd from thy head. 

And now, unveil 'd, the toilet stands display 'd, 

Bach silver vase in mystic order laid. 

First, rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores, 

With head uncover 'd, the cosmetic pow'rs. 
125 A heav'nly image in the glass appears; 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 31 

To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears. 
Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side, 
Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride. 
Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here 

.30 The various off 'rings of the world appear; 
From each she nicely culls with curious toil, 
And decks the goddess with the glitt'ring spoil. 
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, 
And all Arabia .breathes from yonder box ; 

.35 The tortoise here and elephant unite, 

Transform 'd to combs, the speckled and the white. 
Here files of pins extend their shining rows, 
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux. 
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms; 
The Fair each moment rises in her charms, 
Repairs her smiles, awakens ev'ry grace, 
And calls forth all the wonders of her face; 
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, 
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. 

45 The busy Sylphs surround their darling care, 
These set the head, and those divide the hair, 
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown ; 
And Betty's prais'd for labors not her own. 

canto n. 
Not with more glories, in th ' etherial plain, 
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main, 
Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams 
Launch 'd on the bosom of the silver Thames. 
5 Fair nymphs, and well-drest youths around her shone, 
But ev'ry eye was fixed on her alone. 
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, 



32 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore. 
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, 

10 Quick as her eyes, and as unfix 'd as those. 
Favors to none, to all she smiles extends • 
Oft she rejects, but never once offends. 
Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, 
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. 

15 Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, 
Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide ; 
If to her share some female errors fall, 
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all. 
This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, 

20 Nourish 'd two locks, which graceful hung behind 
In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck 
With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck. 
Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains, 
And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. 

25 With hairy springes we the birds betray, 
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey, 
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, 
And beauty draws us with a single hair. 

Th' advent 'rous baron the bright locks admir'd; 

30 He saw, he wish'd, and to the prize aspir'd, 
Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way, 
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray; 
For when success a lover's toil attends, 
Few ask if fraud or force attain 'd his ends. 

35 For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implor'd 
Propitious heav'n, and ev'ry pow'r ador'd, 
But chiefly Love — to Love an altar built 
Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. 
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves, 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 33 

40 And all the trophies of his former loves ; 
With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre, 
And breathes three am'rous sighs to raise the fire. 
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes 
Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize : 

45 The pow'rs gave ear, and granted half his pray'r ; 
The rest the winds dispers'd in empty air. 
But now secure the painted vessel glides, 
The sun-beams trembling on the floating tides, 
While melting music steals upon the sky, 

bo And soften 'd sounds along the waters die. 

Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play, 
Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay. 
All. but the Sylph ; with careful thoughts opprest, 
Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast. 

55 He summons strait his denizens of air; 
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair: 
Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, 
That seem'd but zephyrs to the train beneath. 
Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold, 

60 Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold ; 
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, 
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light, 
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, 
Thin glitt'ring textures of the filmy dew, 

65 Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies, 
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes, 
While ev'ry beam new transient colors flings, 
Colors that change when'er they wave their wings. 
Amid the circle, on the gilded mast, 

70 Superior by the head, was Ariel plac'd; 
His purple pinions op'ning to the sun, 



34 SHOKTEK ENGLISH POEMS 

He raised his azure wand, and thus begun : 

'■'Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear! 
Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Demons, hear ! 

75 Ye know the spheres and various tasks assign 'd 
By laws eternal to th' aerial kind. 
Some in the fields of purest ether play, 
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day. 
Some guide the course of wand 'ring orbs on high, 

so Or roll the planets thro ' the boundless sky. 
Some, less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light 
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night, 
Or suck the mists in grosser air below, 
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow, 

85 Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, 
Or o 'er the glebe distill the kindly rain. 
Others on earth o'er human race preside, 
Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide : 
Of these the chief the care of nations own, 

so And guard with arms divine the British Throne. 
"Our humbler province is to tend the Fair, 
Not a less pleasing, tho ' less glorious care ; 
To save the powder from too rude a gale, 
Nor let th' imprison 'd essences exhale; 

95 To draw fresh colors from the vernal flow'rs; 
To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in show'rs 
A brighter wash ; to curl their waving hairs, 
Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs : 
Nay, oft, in dreams invention we bestow, 

ioo To change a flounce, or add a furbelow. 

' ' This day black omens threat the brightest Fair 
That e'er deserv'd a watchful spirit's care; 
Some dire disaster, or by force, or slight; 



THE EAPE OE THE LOCK 35 

But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night. 

105 Whether the nymph shall break Diana 's law, 
Or some frail China jar receive a flaw; 
Or stain her honor, or her new brocade, 
Forget her pray 'rs, or miss a masquerade, 
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball ; 

no Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall. 
Haste, then, ye spirits ! to your charge repair : 
The flutt'ring fan be Zephyretta's care; 
The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign; 
And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine ; 

115 Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav'rite lock; 
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock. 
To fifty chosen sylphs, of special note, 
We trust the important charge, the petticoat : 
Form a strong line about the silver bound, 

120 And guard the wide circumference around. 
" Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, 
His post neglects, or leaves the Fair at large, 
Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins: 
Be stopp'd in vials, or transfix 'd with pins, 

125 Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie, 
Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye; 
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, 
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain; 
Or alum styptics with contracting pow'r 

130 Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flow'r; 
Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel 
The giddy motion of the whirling mill, 
In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, 
And tremble at the sea that froths below ! ' ' 

135 He spoke; the spirits from the sails descend. 



36 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend; 
Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair; 
Some hang upon the pendants of her ear. 
"With beating hearts the dire event they wait, 
140 Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate. 

CANTO III. 

Close by those meads, for ever crown 'd with flow 'rs 
"Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs, 
There stands a structure of majestic frame, 
Which from the neighboring Hampton takes its name. 

5 Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom 
Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home ; 
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, 
Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea. 
Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort, 

10 To taste awhile the pleasures of a court. 

In various talk th' instructive hours they past, 
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last; 
One speaks the glory of the British Queen, 
And one describes a charming Indian screen; 

15 A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes ; 
At ev'ry word a reputation dies. 
Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat, 
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that. 
Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day, 

20 The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray; 
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, 
And wretches hang that jury-men may dine ; 
The merchant from th' Exchange returns in peace, 
And the long labors of the toilet cease. 

25 Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites, 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 37 

Burns to encounter two advent 'rous knights, 

At Ombre singly to decide their doom ; 

And swells her breast with conquests yet to come. 

Straight the three bands prepare in arms to join, 
30 Each band the number of the sacred nine. 

Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aerial guard 

Descend, and sit on each important card : 

First Ariel perch 'd upon a Matadore, 

Then each according to the rank they bore; 
35 For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, 

Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place. 
Behold four Kings in majesty rever'd, 

"With hoary whiskers and a forky beard; 

And four fair Queens, whose hands sustain a flow'r, 
40 Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r; 

Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band, 

Caps on their heads, and halberds in their hand; 

And particolor'd troops, a shining train, 

Drawn forth to combat on the velvet plain. 
45 The skillful nymph reviews her force with care ; 

Let Spades be trumps ! she said ; and trumps they 
were. 
Now move to war her sable Matadores, 

In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors. 

Spadillio first, unconquerable lord! 
50 Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board. 

As many more Manillio forced to yield, 

And march 'd a victor from the verdant field. 

Him Basto followed, but his fate more hard 

Gain'd but one trump and one plebeian card. 
55 With his broad sabre next, a chief in years, 

The hoary Majesty of Spades appears, 



38 SHOBTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Puts forth one manly leg, to sight reveal'd; 
The rest his many-color 'd robe conceal'd. 
The rebel Knave, who dares his prince engage, 

60 Proves the just victim of his royal rage. 

Ev'n mighty Pam, that Kings and Queens o'erthrew 
And mow'd down armies in the fights of Loo, 
Sad chance of war! now destitute of aid, 
Falls undistinguish 'd by the victor Spade! 

65 Thus far both armies to Belinda yield; 
Now to the Baron fate inclines the field. 
His warlike amazon her host invades, 
Th' imperial consort of the crown of Spades. 
The Club 's black tyrant first her victim dy 'd, 

70 Spite of his haughty mien, and barb 'rous pride : 
What boots the regal circle on his head, 
His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread, 
That long behind he trails his pompous robe, 
And of all monarchs only grasps the globe? 

75 The Baron now his Diamonds pours apace ; 
Th ' embroider 'd King who shows but half his face, 
And his refulgent Queen, with pow'rs combin'd, 
Of broken troops an easy conquest find. 
Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen, 

so With throngs promiscuous strow the level green. 
Thus when dispers'd a routed army runs 
Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons, 
With like confusion different nations fly, 
Of various habit, and of various dye ; 

85 The pierc 'd battalions disunited fall, 

In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all. 

The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts, 
And wins (oh shameful chance !) the Queen of Hearts. 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 39 

At this the blood the virgin's cheek forsook, 

90 A livid paleness spreads o 'er all her look ; 
She sees, and trembles at th' approaching" ill, 
Just in the jaws of ruin, and Codille. 
And now (as oft in some distemper 'd state) 
On one nice trick depends the gen'ral fate; 
( 95 An ace of Hearts steps forth ; The King unseen 

Lurk 'd in her hand, and mourn 'd his captive Queen : 
He springs to vengeance with an eager pace, 
And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace. 
The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky ; 

loo The walls, the woods, and long canals reply. 
Oh thoughtless mortals ! ever blind to fate, 
Too soon dejected, and too soon elate, 
Sudden these honors shall be snatch 'd away, 
And curs'd for ever this victorious day. 

105 For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown 'd, 
The berries crackle, and the mill turns round ; 
On shining altars of Japan they raise 
The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze : 
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, 

no While China's earth receives the smoking tide. 
At once they gratify their scent and taste, 
And frequent cups prolong the rich repast. 
Straight hover round the Fair her airy band ; 
Some, as she sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd, 

115 Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display 'd, 
Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade. 
Coffee (which makes the politician wise, 
And see thro' all things with his half-shut eyes) 
Sent up in vapors to the Baron's brain 

120 New stratagems, the radiant Lock to gain. 



40 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Ah cease, rash youth ! desist ere 'tis too late, 

Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate ! 

Chang 'd to a bird, and sent to flit in air, 

She dearly pays for Nisus' injur 'd hair! 
125 But when to mischief mortals bend their will, 

How soon they find fit instruments of ill ! 

Just then Clarissa drew with tempting grace 

A two-edg'd weapon from her shining case; 

So ladies in romance assist their knight, 
130 Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. 

He takes the gift with rev'rence, and extends 

The little engine on his fingers' ends; 

This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, 

As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head. 
135 Swift to the Lock a thousand sprites repair ; 

A thousand wings by turns blow back the hair ; 

And thrice they twitch 'd the diamond in her ear ; 

Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near. 

Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought 
140 The close recesses of the virgin 's thought ; 

As on the nosegay in her breast reclin'd, 

He watch 'd th' ideas rising in her mind, 

Sudden he view 'd, in spite of all her art, 

An earthly lover lurking at her heart. 
145 Amaz'd, confus'd, he found his pow'r expir'd, 

Resign 'd to fate, and with a sigh retir'd. 

The Peer now spreads the glitt'ring forfex wide, 

T ' inclose the Lock ; now joins it, to divide. 

Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd, 
150 A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos 'd ; 

Fate urg'd the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain 

(But airy substance soon unites again) : 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 41 

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever 
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever! 

155 Then flash 'd the living lightning from her eyes, 
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies. 
Not louder shrieks to pitying heav 'n are cast, 
"When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last; 
Or when rich China vessels fall'n from high, 

160 In glittering dust and painted fragments lie ! 

"Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine," 
The victor cried; "the glorious prize is mine ! 
While fish in streams, or birds delight in air, 
Or in a coach and six the British Fair, 

165 As long as Atalantis shall be read, 

Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed; 
While visits shall be paid on solemn days, 
When num'rous waxlights in bright order blaze; 
While nymphs take treats, or assignations give, 

170 So long my honor, name, and praise shall live ! 
What Time would spare, from Steel receives its date, 
And monuments, like men, submit to fate ! 
Steel could the labor of the gods destroy, 
And strike to dust th' imperial tow'rs of Troy; 

L75 Steel could the works of mortal pride confound 
And hew triumphal arches to the ground. 
What wonder then, fair nymph ! thy hair should feel 
The conqu'ring force of unresisted steel?" 

CANTO IV. 

But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppressed, 

And secret passions labor 'd in her breast. 

Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive, 

Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, 

Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss, 



42 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss, 

Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, 

Not Cynthia when her manteau 's pinn 'd awry, 

E 'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair, 

10 As thou, sad virgin ! for thy ravish 'd hair. 

For, that sad moment when the Sylphs withdrew 
And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, 
Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite, 
As ever sullied the fair face of light, 

15 Down to the central earth, his proper scene, 

Repairs to search the gloomy cave of Spleen. 

Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome, 

And in a vapor reach 'd the dismal dome. 

No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, 

20 The dreaded East is all the wind that blows. 
Here in a grotto, sheltered close from air, 
And screen 'd in shades from day's detested glare, 
She sighs for ever on her pensive bed, 
Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head. 

25 Two handmaids wait the throne ; alike in place, 
But diff'ring far in figure and in face. 
Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid, 
Her wrinkled form in black and white array 'd ; 
With store of pray 'rs for mornings, nights, and noons, 

30 Her hand is filPd; her bosom with lampoons. 
There Affectation, with a sickly mien, 
Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen, 
Practie 'd to lisp and hang the head aside, 
Faints into airs and languishes with pride ; 

35 On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, 
Wrapt in a gown for sickness and for show. 
The fair ones feel such maladies as these, 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK 43 

When each new night-dress gives a new disease. 

A constant vapor o'er the palace flies, 
> Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise, 

Dreadfnl as hermit's dreams in haunted shades, 

Or bright as visions of expiring maids : 

Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires, 

Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires ; 
; Now lakes of liquid gold, elysian scenes, 

And crystal domes, and angels in machines. 
Unnumber'd throngs on every side are seen, 

Of bodies chang'd to various forms by Spleen. 

Here living Tea-pots stand, one arm held out, 
» One bent ; the handle this, and that the spout ; 

A Pipkin there, like Homer's tripod, walks; 

Here sighs a Jar, and there a Goose-pie talks ; 



55 Safe pass'd the Gnome thro' this fantastic band, 
A branch of healing spleenwort in his hand. 
Then thus address 'd the pow'r — "Hail, wayward 

Queen ! 
Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen; 
Parent of Vapors, and of female wit, 

60 Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit; 
On various tempers act by various ways, 
Make some take physic, others scribble plays ; 
Who cause the proud their visits to delay, 
And send the godly in a pet to pray ! 

65 A nymph there is, that all thy pow'r disdains, 
And thousands more in equal mirth maintains. 
But, oh ! if e 'er thy Gnome could spoil a grace, 
Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face, 
Like citron-waters matrons' cheeks inflame, 



44 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

70 Or change complexions at a losing game ; 

Or caus'd suspicion when no soul was rude, 

Or discompos'd the head-dress of a prude, 

Or e'er to costive lapdog gave disease, 

Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease, 
75 Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin; 

That single act gives half the world the spleen. ' ' 
The goddess with a discontented air 

Seems to reject him, tho' she grants his pray'r. 

A wond'rous Bag with both her hands she binds, 
so Like that where once. Ulysses held the winds ; 

There she collects the force of female lungs, 

Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues. 

A Vial next she fills with fainting fears, 

Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears. 
85 The Gnome rejoicing bears her gift away, 

Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day. 
Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he found, 

Her eyes dejected, and her hair unbound. 

Full o'er their heads the swelling Bag he rent, 
so And all the furies issued at the vent. 

Belinda burns with more than mortal ire, 

And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire. 

"0 wretched maid!" she spread her hands, and 
cry'd, 

(While Hampton's echoes "Wretched maid!" 
replied,) 
95 "Was it for this you took such constant care 

The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare ? 

For this your locks in paper durance bound ? 

For this with tort 'ring irons, wreath 'd around? 

For this with fillets strain 'd your tender head, 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 45 

too And bravely bore the double loads of lead ? 
Gods ! shall the ravisher display your hair, 
While the fops envy, and the ladies stare ? 
Honor forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine 
Ease, pleasure, virtue, all, our sex resign. 

105 Methinks already I your tears survey, 
Already hear the horrid things they say, 
Already see you a degraded toast, 
And all your honor in a whisper lost ! 
How shall I then your helpless fame defend? 

110 'T will then be infamy to seem your friend ! 
And shall this prize, th' inestimable prize, 
Expos'd through crystal to the gazing eyes, 
And heighten 'd by the diamond's circling rays, 
On that rapacious hand for ever blaze ? 

115 Sooner shall grass in Hyde-park Circus grow, 
And Wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow ; 
Sooner let earth, air, sea, to chaos fall, 
Men, monkeys, lapdogs, parrots, perish all!" 
She said; then raging to Sir Plume repairs, 

120 And bids the beau demand the precious hairs : 
(Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, 
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane) 
With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face, 
He first the snuff-box open'd, then the case, 

125 And thus broke out — ' ' My Lord ! why, what the 
devil ! 
Zounds! damn the Lock! 'fore Gad, you must be 

civil ! 
Plague on 't! 't is past a jest — nay prithee, pox! 
Give her the hair" — he spoke, and rapp'd his box. 
"It grieves me much," reply 'd the peer again, 



46 SHOKTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

130 "Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain; 
But by this Lock, this sacred Lock I swear, 
(Which never more shall join its parted hair; 
Which never more its honors shall renew, 
Clipp'd from the lovely head where late it grew,) 

135 That, while my nostrils draw the vital air, 
This hand, which won it, shall for ever wear." 
He spoke; and speaking, in proud triumph spread 
The long-contended honors of her head. 

But Umbriel, hateful Gnome ! forbears not so ; 

140 He breaks the Vial whence the sorrows flow. 
Then see ! the nymph in beauteous grief appears, 
Her eyes half -languishing, half-drown 'd in tears; 
On her heav'd bosom hung her drooping head, 
Which, with a sigh, she rais 'd ; and thus she said : 

145 "For ever curs'd be this detested day, 

Which snatch 'd my best, my fav'rite curl away! 
Happy! ah ten times happy had I been, 
If Hampton Court these eyes had never seen! 
Yet am not I the first mistaken maid, 

150 By love of courts to num'rous ills betray 'd. 
Oh had I rather unadmir'd remain 'd 
In some lone isle, or distant northern land, 
Where the gilt chariot never marks the way, 
Where none learn Ombre, none e'er taste Bohea! 

155 There kept my charms conceal'd from mortal eye, 
Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die. 
What mov'd my mind with youthful lords to roam? 
Oh had I stay'd, and said my pray'rs at home ! 
'T was this, the morning omens seem'd to tell: 

160 Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell ; 
The tottering china shook without a wind; 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 47 

Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind! 
A Sylph too warn'd me of the threats of fate, 
In mystic visions, now believ ? d too late ! 

'165 See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs ! 
My hands shall rend what ev'n thy rapine spares. 
These, in two sable ringlets taught to break, 
Once gave new beauties .to the snowy neck ; 
The sister lock now sits uncouth, alone, 

170 And in its fellow 's fate foresees its own ; 
Uncurl'd it hangs, the fatal shears demands, 
And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands. 
Oh hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize 
Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!'* 

CANTO V. 

She said: the pitying audience melt in tears; 

But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears. 

In vain Thalestris with reproach assails; 

For who can move when fair Belinda fails? 
5 Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain, 

While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain. 

Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan; 

Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began: 

"Say, why are beauties prais'd and honor 'd most, 
10 The wise man 's passion, and the vain man 's toast ? 

Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford, 

Why angels call'd, and angel-like ador'd? 

Why round our coaches crowd the white-glov'd 
beaux ? 

Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows? 
15 How vain are all these glories, all our pains, 

Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains, 



48 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

That men may say, when we the front-box grace, 

' Behold the first in virtue as in face ! ' 

Oh ! if to dance all night, and dress all day, 
20 Charm 'd the small-pox, or chas'd old age away; 

Who would not scorn what housewife's cares 
produce, 

Or who would learn one earthly thing of use? 

To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint; 

Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint. 
25 But since, alas ! frail beauty must decay ; 

Curl'd or uncurl'd, since locks will turn to gray; 

Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade, 

And she who scorns a man, must die a maid; 

What then remains but well our pow'r to use, 
30 And keep good-humor still whate 'er we lose ? 

And trust me, dear ! good-humor can prevail, 

When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail. 

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; 

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. ' ' 
35 So spoke the dame, but no applause ensu'd; 

Belinda frowned, Thalestris call'd her prude. 

"To arms, to arms!" the fierce virago cries, 

And swift as lightning to the combat flies. 

All side in parties, and begin th' attack; 
40 Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack ; 

Heroes' and heroines' shouts confus'dly rise, 

And bass, and treble voices strike the skies. 

No common weapons in the hands are found; 

Like gods they fight, nor dread a mortal wound. 
45 So when bold Homer makes the gods engage, 

And heav'nly breasts with human passions rage; 

'Gainst Pallas, Mars ; Latona, Hermes arms ; 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK 49 

And all Olympus rings with loud alarms; 

Jove's thunder roars, heav'n trembles all around; 
50 Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound ; 

Earth shakes her nodding tow'rs, the ground gives 
way, 

And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day! 
Triumphant Umbriel, on a sconce's height, 

Clapp 'd his glad wings, and sate to view the fight. 
55 Propp 'd on their bodkin spears, the sprites survey 

The growing combat, or assist the fray. 
While thro' the press enrag'd Thalestris flies, 

And scatters death around from both her eyes, 

A beau and witling perish 'd in the throng; 
60 One died in metaphor, and one in song. 

' ' cruel nymph ! a living death I bear, ' ' 

Cried Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair. 

A mournful glance Sir Fopling upward cast ; 

"Those eyes are made so killing" — was his last. 
65 Thus on Masander's flow'ry margin lies 

Th' expiring swan, and as he sings he dies. 

When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down, 

Chloe stepp'd in, and kill'd him with a frown; 

She smil'd to see the doughty hero slain/ 
70 But, at her smile, the beau reviv'd again. 
Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air, 

Weighs the men's wits against the lady's hair; 

The doubtful beam long nods from side to side ; 

At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside. 
75 See, fierce Belinda on the Baron flies, 

With more than usual lightning in her eyes ; 

Nor fear'd the chief th' unequal fight to try, 

Who sought no more than on his foe to die. 



50 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

But this bold lord, with manly strength endu'd, 
so She with one finger and a thumb subdu'd: 

Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, 

A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw; 

The Gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just, 

The pungent grains of titillating dust. 
85 Sudden with starting tears each eye o'erflows, 

And the high dome re-echoes to his nose. - 

"Now meet thy fate," incens'd Belinda cry'd, 

And drew a deadly bodkin from her side. 

(The same, his ancient personage to deck, 
so Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck, 

In three seal-rings; which after, melted down, 

Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown; 

Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew, 

The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew; 
95 Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs, 

Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.) 
"Boast not my fall," he cried, "insulting foe! 

Thou by some other shalt be laid as low. 

Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind; 
ioo All that I dread is leaving you behind ! 

Rather than so, ah let me still survive, 

And burn in Cupid's flames — but burn alive." 
1 i Restore the Lock ! ' ' she cries ; and all around 

"Restore the Lock!" the vaulted roofs rebound. 
105 Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 

Roar'd for the handkerchief that caus'd his pain. 

But see how oft ambitious aims are cross 'd, 

And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost! 

The Lock, obtain 'd with guilt, and kept with pain, 
no In ev'ry place is sought, but sought in vain. 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK 51 

With such a prize no mortal must be blest, 
So heav'n decrees! with heav'n who can contest? 
Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere, 
Since all things lost on earth are treasured there. 

115 There heroes' wits are kept in pond'rous vases, 
And beaux in snuff-boxes and tweezer-cases. 
There broken vows and death-bed alms are found, 
And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound, 
The courtier's promises, and sick man's pray'rs, 

120 The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs, . 
Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea, 
Dried butterflies, and tomes of casuistry. 

But trust the Muse — she saw it upward rise, 
Tho' mark'd by none but quick poetic eyes; 

125 (So Rome's great founder to the heav'ns withdrew, 
To Proculus alone confess 'd in view) 
A sudden star, it shot thro ' liquid air, 
And drew behind a radiant trail of hair. 
Not Berenice's locks first rose so bright, 

130 The heav'ns bespangling with dishevel 'd light. 
The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies, 
And pleas 'd pursue its progress thro' the skies. 

This the beau monde shall from the Mall survey, 
And hail with music its propitious ray. 

135 This the blest lover shall for Venus take, 
And send up vows from Eosamonda's lake; 
This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies, 
When next he looks thro' Galileo's eyes; 
And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom 

140 The fate of Louis, and the fall of Eome. 

Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravish 'd 
hair 



52 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Which adds new glory to the shining sphere ! 
Not all the tresses that fair head can boast, 
Shall draw such envy as the Lock you lost: 

145 For after all the murders of your eye, 

"When, after millions slain, yourself shall die : 
When those fair suns shall set, as set they must, 
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust, 
This Lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame, 

150 And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name. 

EAPE OF THE LOCK. 

NOTES. 

The Rape of the Lock is one of the longest occasional poems in 
any literature. It was translated into French by Marmontel. Tope 
was extremely* proud of the poem, and it is said that the compli- 
ment conveyed in it made Miss Arabella Fermor, the heroine, very 
vain. 

Nolueram, etc. : "I was unwilling, Belinda, to disarrange thy 
locks ; but it pleases me to pay this tribute to thy prayers." 

Mrs. Arabella Fermor. Mrs., an abbreviation of Mistress, was 
then the usual title of an unmarried woman. Cf. Shakespeare's 
"Mistress Anne Page." 

CANTO I. 

Line 3. Caryl: Mr. John Caryl was the gentleman who bad 
suggested to Pope that a humorous poem might restore the families 
of Miss Fermor and Lord Petre to good nature. 

23. Birth-night Beau: Such a fine gentleman as might be seen 
at the State Ball annually given on the King's birthday. 

32. The silver token, etc. Such allusions show that even the 
artificial eighteenth century had not forgotten the fairy folk-lore 
dear to the popular heart. 

34. Wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs, a possible reminiscence of 
Massinger's Virgin Martyr, in which the heroine, Dorothea, is so 
visited, according to an old legend. 

39. Doubting Wits: Wit is a favorite word of the period. Here 
it applies to sophisticated, clever people. It has many other uses. 
Follow it through the poem. 

44. The Box is an opera box. The Ring is originally a circus 
ring ; the reference here is to a circular promenade in Hyde Park. 

46. Two pages and a chair: The allusion is to a sedan chair, 
in which ladies were then carried by little pages. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK: NOTES 



53 



54, 55. "Quae gratia currum 

Armorumque fuit vivis, quae cura nitentes 
Paseere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos." 

Virg. Aen., vi. Pope. 

56. Ombre: A game of cards which we are soon to meet, said 
to be the oldest known to Europe. 

59-66. This analysis of the Fair is certainly not flattering. Did 
Pope know no women except termagants, weaklings, prudes, and 
coquettes? 

108. "The language of the Platonists." Pope. 

115. Shock. Her pet dog ; Shock means shaggy. Cf. our phrase, 
"a shock of hair." 

121 seq. The toilet was at that period a solemn and elaborate 
rite, which is celebrated in drama and essay as well as in poetry. 

138. Note the alliteration and the mischief. 



CANTO II. 

7. A sparkling cross: Spenser's Knight of Holiness wore a red 
cross upon his shield. What a contrast in the two conceptions ! 
But the language of hyperbole rarely turned a more graceful com- 
pliment than this. 

28. In allusion to those lines of Hudibras, applied to the same 
purpose, — 

"And tho' it be a two-foot trout, 
'Tis with a single hair pull'd out." 

Warburton. 

38. These great French romances began to be popular in the 
17th century, and were the favorite reading of society. Glelie, one 
of the best liked, consisted of ten volumes, of eight hundred pages 
each. The modern novel had not yet appeared. Richardson's 
Pamela was published in 1740, twenty-eight years after The Rape 
of the Lock. 

45. Pope refers to the Aeneid, Book XI, verses 794-5. It was 
proper for an epic hero to sacrifice to the gods before starting on 
his exploit. 

47 seq. Note through these lines the liquid flow of the verse. 

60 seq. This description shows a sense for color and visible 
beauty rare in Pope. 

74. An imitation of Satan's address to his followers, Paradise 
Lost, V, 601. 

"Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers." 

90-100. Nothing could be more felicitous or more in the taste of 
the time than this description, unless it be the sly humor with 
which the punishments of the Sylphs are described below. 

105 seq. Here are antithesis and anticlimax skilfully inter- 
woven. The anticlimax in 106 is repeated in Canto III, 159. 

112. Notice the appropriateness of the pretty names. 



54 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

127. Washes, gums, pomatums are cosmetic aids to the toilet. 

131. Ixion. Would-be lover of Juno, punished by Jove by being 
bound to an ever-rolling^ wheel. 

132. The mill is the chocolate grinder. 

133. Fumes of burning chocolate. A fitting and amusing climax. 
Chocolate was a favorite beverage, often taken in bed before the 
day began. 

CANTO III. 

4. The neighb'ring Hampton: Hampton Court is still a favorite 
resort. 

7. Tea is not a false rhyme. It was always pronounced tay in 
Pope's time. Cf. Bohea, IV, 154. 

27. Ombre was the bridge of the period. The name is from 
the Spanish word for man. "It was a game of Spanish origin. The 
three principal trumps were called Matadores ; these are, in the _ 
order of their rank, Spadillo, the ace of spades ; Manillo, the deuce 
of clubs when trumps are black, the seven when they are red ; and 
Basto, the ace of clubs." 

62. In the game of Loo, Pam is the highest card. Loo was a 
game which long held popular favor. Wordsworth in the Prelude, 
Book I, Line 516, tells us how he and his mates played it in winter 
evenings when he was a little boy. 

92. Codille: A term in Ombre. If the Baron takes more tricks 
than Belinda, he will win the codille. 

107. It is now time for coffee, served in china cups. This was 
Pope's own favorite beverage. Altars of Japan are little japanned 
tables. 

123. Think of Scylla's fate: Pope refers to Ovid, Metamorphoses, 
VIII. 

152. Pope takes pains to inform us that this is a parody of 
Milton. In a note he refers us to the following passage : — 
"But the ethereal substance closed, 
Not long divisible ; and from the gash 
A stream of nectarous humor issuing flowed 
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed." 

Paradise Lost, VI. 330-334. 
163-170. 

"Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit, 
Semper honos nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt." 

Virgil, Eclogues, V. 76, 77. 
165. Atalantis was a rather scandalous book written by a Mrs. 
Manley. 

170 seq. All this is admirable burlesque of real epic tone, 
rhetoric taking the place of sublimity. 

CANTO IV. 

15. A descent to the shadowy realms of night or evil was a 
proper episode in an epic. Cf. Duessa's visit to Night, Faerie 



THE EAPE OF THE LOCK: NOTES 55 

Queene, Book I, Canto V, and the descent of Aeneas to Hades, 
Aeneid, VI. 

24. Megrim: "Migraine," sick headache; a complaint of fine 
ladies. 

30. Lampoons: Common in those days, not in comic papers as 
now, but in freely circulated broadsides. 

50. The fantastic runs riot. Pope is thinking of insane people. 
Insanity, with all its strange delusions, was especially common in 
his day. 

51. Homer's tripod walks: See Horn. Iliad, XVIII, of Vulcan's 
walking tripods. Warourton. 

56. Spleentvort; A plant called miltwaste. 

58. Who rule the sex: A "you" must be supplied before the 
relative pronoun. 

59. Vapors: A fashionable difficulty of society women akin to- 
hysterics or the blues. 

69. Citron-waters: "Spirits distilled from citron rind." 

80. Aeolus, god of the winds, gave wandering Ulysses a bag of 
winds to carry him home ; but his companions opened the bag and 
the winds escaped. 

87. Thalestris was Mrs. Morley, sister of Sir George Brown, 
Pope's Sir Plume. 

106. Horrid was a term of more dignity then than now. 

109. To be a toast was the aspiration of every pretty girl. 

114. She thinks he may make the hair into a hair ring, such as 
our great-grandfathers wore. 

116. The sound of Boiv: Within the sound of Bow bells lay the 
least fashionable quarter of the city. 

121. Sir Plume: "Sir George Brown. He was the only one of 
the Party who took the thing seriously. He was angry, that the 
Poet should make him talk nothing but nonsense; and, in truth, 
one could not well blame him." Warourton. 

125. Admirable descriptive line. Sir Plume's broken remarks 
are very amusing. On the other hand, the peer who begins to 
speak in line 130 is a polished and fluent gentleman. 

160. Patch-oox: Belles adorned their faces with little black 
patches of court-plaster, to bring out the brilliancy of their skin* 

canto v. 

5-6. The Trojan: Aeneas, deaf to Dido's entreaties not to 
leave her. 

7. Grave Clarissa: "A new character introduced in the subse- 
quent editions to open more clearly the moral of the poem, in a 
parody of the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus in Homer, Iliad, Bk. 
XII." Pope. 

Clarissa's speech is a model of 18th century good sense and 
morality. 

40. Notice the onomatopoeia. 



56 SHOBTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

45. Pope refers to Homer, Iliad, XX. The absurdity is rising 
with the excitement. 

53. Triumphant TJmoriel: "Minerva in like manner, during the 
battle of Ulysses with the Suitors in Odyss., perches on a beam of 
the roof to behold it." Pope. 

71. Pope refers to Homer, Iliad: VIII, and Virgil, Aeneid: XII. 

89. An interesting heirloom. 

105. Not fierce Othello: Here is evidence that Shakespeare was 
holding the stage even in this unsympathetic time. Pope himself 
edited Shakespeare. His edition was published in 1725. 

113. Pope refers to Ariosto, Canto XXXIV. 

125-6. Mars, father of Romulus, according to the legend, car- 
ried him to the skies in a fiery chariot. Shortly afterward, Romulus 
appeared to Proculus Julius, a senator, and commanded the Romans 
to worship him under the name of Quirinus. 

129. Berenice: Wife of Ptolemy III of Egypt. Her hair, which 
she dedicated in the temple to her husband's safe return from 
fighting, became a constellation. 

133. The Mall: A promenade of the time. Cf. the Mall on 
Boston Common. 

137. This Partridge soon: "John Partridge was a ridiculous 
star-gazer, who in his Almanacks every year never fail'd to predict 
the downfall of the Pope, and the King of France, then at war with 
the English." Pope. 

Partridge was the butt of a famous hoax by Swift. 



THOMAS GRAY 



57 



THOMAS GEAY. 1716—1771. 

I. 

Gray was born in 1716, in a decade when Addisor* 
and Pope, Steele and Swift, were delighting the English 
public with their keen wit and their ironic worldly wis- 
dom. He died in 1771, five years before the American 
Declaration of Independence, and eighteen years before 
the Fall of the Bastille in France. His life thus covered 
the central portion of the eighteenth centnry. It was a 
period when no great faith or hope was exciting the 
world, when people admired correctness rather than orig- 
inality, and when English letters inclined rather to prose 
than to poetry. Dr. Johnson was in London, playing the 
role of literary dictator; in his hands and in those of 
Oliver Goldsmith and others, periodical journals con- 
tinued the tradition established in Queen Anne's day by 
Addison and Steele. The novel, in the hands of Eichard- 
son, Fielding, Sterne, and Smollett, was expressing con- 
temporary life with a new breadth, zest, and freedom. 
Over on the Continent, Voltaire and Diderot were flash- 
ing a cold light across the age. Lessing, the great ration- 
alistic critic, flourished in Germany. Far in the North, a 
man quite apart from his century, the seer and mystic 
Emanuel Swedenborg was bearing firm witness to much 
that the spirit of the times most scornfully ignored. Jean 
Jacques Eousseau, a restless genius, full of passion 
destined to stir almost at once a new life in England, 
was, it is interesting to notice, almost an exact contempo- 
59 



60 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

rary of Gray : his Nouvelle Heloise appeared in 1760, ten 
years after the Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 

Poets, at this time, were few and far between. Apart 
from Oliver Goldsmith, the only English poet of real 
importance besides Gray himself was Gray's brother in 
spirit, Collins. "A sort of spiritual east wind," says 
Matthew Arnold, "was at that time blowing"; we shall 
probably not be wrong if we agree with him in account- 
ing by this prevalent atmosphere for the slightness in 
quantity of Gray's production and for the impression it 
conveys of a man stirred by deeper emotions than he can 
express. 

Gray was a scholar-poet. 1 A friend wrote, "Mr. Gray 
was perhaps the most learned man in Europe," and the 
claim appears to have been just. The poet was at. home 
in every branch of history : he was an unwearied student 
of metaphysics and politics, an eager antiquarian, and 
he had a fine taste in "painting, prints, architecture, and 
gardening." We know him to have been an ardent stu- 
dent of the natural sciences as his age conceived them, 
a fine and fastidious lover of the classics, and an 
omnivorous reader in many languages. In short, he 
represents that union of wide culture and sound scholar- 
ship which, as specialization increases, is becoming in- 
creasingly difficult to attain, but which marked to a rare 
degree a few of the distinguished men of the eighteenth 
century? 

It is quite fitting that we see a man of such tastes 
and acquirements against the background of the great 

1 It is interesting to notice, as Matthew Arnold suggests in another 
connection, quoting from Sainte Beuve, "how often we see the alli- 
ance, singular as it may at first sight appear, of the poetical genius 
with the genius for scholarship and philology." 



THOMAS GEAY 61 

university where he spent his life. Gray's uneventful 
biography may be briefly chronicled. He was born of 
simple folk: his mother and aunt, to both of whom 
he was sincerely attached, kept a milliners' shop in 
London. The father was apparently half insane, but 
the women of the family managed to give the clever boy 
the education of an English gentleman, at Eton and at 
Cambridge. In the eighteenth century, the English 
universities were hardly great centres of intellectual 
activity. The life in them was rather dull and languid; 
the education was stereotyped, confined to mediaeval lines, 
and not nearly so stimulating as it is today. But the 
beautiful old town presented then as now its noble 
buildings and wide sweeps of greensward dotted by 
great trees : and it had in its keeping that great gift 
which modern universities offer all too rarely, — the gift 
of scholastic leisure. Here Gray's life was to be passed. 
But first he knew for three years the privilege that has 
always been deemed essential to the training of an 
English scholar, — extended travel on the Continent. 
In 1739, he went to Europe as the guest of his school 
friend, Horace Walpole. Walpole, the son of Sir Eobert 
Walpole, the prime minister, was an erratic, clever, rest- 
less, superficial man. He is known in English literature 
as the author of many sprightly letters which throw 
much light on his time, and of an extraordinary story, 
The Castle of Otranto, one of the landmarks of the 
Romantic Revival. Before very long Gray and Walpole 
disagreed, and Gray returned to England alone, after 
a three years' absence, to settle down in his university. 
After a few years he renewed his relation with Walpole ; 
in time he made many other friends, especially, as he 



52 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

grew older, among younger men. He had indeed a rare 
capacity for warm friendship ; and we may agree with a 
Swiss friend of his named Bonstetten that Gray would 
have been a happier man and have written more poetry 
had he married and known the joys of fatherhood. 
However, the semi-monastic life at the university suited 
his tastes very well. He held at one time the professor- 
ship of Poetry, but, according to a curious fashion of 
the times, never gave any lectures. He was offered, and 
declined, the laureateship. There is nothing further to 
record in outward events, except his death, which 
occurred in 1771. 

Gray lived somewhat apart from the other literary men 
of his day. He declined, for instance, to meet Dr. John- 
son; and the surly old dictator reciprocated with an un- 
reasonable distaste for his poetry. But Gray's aloofness 
from his contemporaries was more than external: he 
really did undergo different experiences from theirs. 
They were sons of the pseudo-classic age ; their great lik- 
ing was for the literature of Rome and for the French 
books formed upon it: Gray had a fine appreciation of 
classical literature, but his affinity was rather for the 
Greek than for the Roman. They repudiated with scorn 
and impatience all that was "Gothicke" : Gray was fas- 
cinated by Norse, Celtic and mediaeval literature, that 
is, by the remote, primitive, and rude. Few of his con- 
temporaries cared to stir often out of London : Gray was 
one of the first men to be sensitive to the beauty of wild 
nature, and to feel toward mountains and precipices 
somewhat as Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Ruskin 
taught the nineteenth century to feel. The men of his 
day still used exclusively heroic couplets ; Gray enjoyed 



THOMAS GEA? 63 

and experimented with finely wrought lyrical forms. 
No wonder that he withdrew within himself. His in- 
stinctive reserve was increased by an inclination to a 
constitutional melancholy, or "leucocholy," — as he 
called it, — a mild "white" depression that at times 
threatened to inhibit his powers. He liked to write: it 
was, as he told Walpole, his greatest pleasure. But 
freedom and power seldom visited him, and when they 
did, made short and elusive stay. Profoundly stirred at 
times by the instincts of the coming age, he was ill at 
ease between the limitations of his own nature and the 
critical canons of his day. He allowed few men to 
penetrate his intimacy, but those few loved him keenly 
and honored him truly : and his reticent figure, while it 
still leaves the majority indifferent, will always be 
especially attractive to those to whom it appeals at all. 

II. 

Swinburne said that the Muse gave birth to Collins: 
she only gave suck to Gray. Yet in spite of this dictum 
we must accept the statement of Mr. Gosse that Gray 
is the most important poetical figure in our literature 
between Pope and Wordsworth. This is partly due to 
the preciseness with which his work represents the 
transition from an earlier period to that which was to 
follow. In his scant but highly finished achievement 
we can recognize clearly the "notes" of successive poetic 
schools, and one of the charms of these poems for the 
scholarly reader is the various literary associations which 
they evoke. Yet even while we perceive the sequence 
of associations, we realize that we are listening to no 
mere ecnoes of otner men. Gray's genius was dis- 



64 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

tinctive. His poetry may seem at first impersonal and 
cold; but through its reticence the sensitive reader 
finds no difficulty in seeing the man. He did not 
merely wear his learning as an ornament, he made it 
a part of himself : the different influences which his 
poems reflect are no fashions adopted languidly to- suit 
the mood of the hour, but forces that have stirred his 
being to the depths. The melodies he gives us are no 
less genuine because they are no "native wood-notes 
wild," but proceed from an instrument shaped by 
conscious art. 

The first group of poems in the slender volume that 
represents Gray's entire work in verse, contains a few 
odes written in the year 1742, when he was twenty-six 
years old : To Spring; On a Distant Prospect of Eton 
College; On Adversity. Already in these poems Gray 
breaks away from the heroic couplet into free lyrical 
forms. But these carefully phrased odes fall cold on 
the ear. They reflect the inveterate pleasure of the 
eighteenth century in personification and abstraction, 
and the current habit of moralizing, so fatal, from the 
modern point of view, to true imaginative verse. The 
lover of Gray can rightly commend the grace, the elabo- 
rately delicate workmanship, of these lyrics : but Gray 
never would have been the most important figure in 
our poetic history between Pope and Wordsworth had 
he continued to write in this vein. 

During this same year, the Elegy was begun but not 
completed : and now there fell on Gray, for some reason, 
a long-continued incapacity to write. For five years 
he lived a life of academic seclusion, apparently un- 
visited by creative impulse. He broke silence in 1747 



THOMAS GEAY 65 

with a charming and gay trifle, the Ode on Horace 
Walpole's cat, drowned in a vase of "goldfishes : and in 
1750, exactly one hundred years before Tennyson pub- 
lished In Memoriam, he finished the Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard. It was not until seven years later that he 
published his two important and elaborate Pindaric 
odes, The Progress of Poesy and The Bard. Of the 
Elegy we shall speak later. The two odes are of great 
significance in the history of English letters. The 
Progress of Poesy, severely formal in structure, is suf- 
fused by a fine imaginative fervor, a subtle and pene- 
trating perception of beauty, strange indeed to that 
prosaic age. It shows how a critical subject, dealing not 
with life but with the imaginative interpretation of 
life, may so quicken emotion that it becomes fit inspira- 
tion for lofty poetry. The Bard is in some ways on a 
still higher level: it marks the free play of a type of 
enthusiasm which Pope, Addison, Johnson would alike 
have despised. Gray is fired by an old legend that the 
bards of Wales were massacred by order of King 
Edward I. He imagines an ancient bard, the solitary 
survivor of his class, high on a cliff above a gloomy defile 
through which the King passes; denouncing, cursing, 
lamenting, till his impassioned chant evokes the vision of 
the grisly band of his murdered comrades, who together 
weave the bloody tissue of Edward's line and in weird 
chorus predict the tragic fate of his descendants. At 
the end the bard plunges from the precipice into the 
roaring flood. It is a wild and striking theme. The 
poem is born of that reaction from suave or satiric 
pictures of artificial life, that craving for the primeval, 
the passionate, the strange, which were beginning to 



qq SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

stir in the breast of the decorous eighteenth century. 
It is one of the great landmarks in the progress of what 
we know as the Eomantic Eevolt. 

In Gray's later life he yielded himself almost wholly 
to the romantic impulse. A French book on Norse 
mythology, by Paul Henri Mallet, fired his imagination. 
He learned Icelandic, — an unheard-of feat in those 
days, — and became as fascinated with the ancient myths 
of the far North as William Morris was to be in the 
nineteenth century. Two odes, The Fatal Sister and 
The Descent of Odin, and certain fragmentary transla- 
tions from the Welsh, are the fruits of this enthusiasm, 
in which Gray was more than a century in advance of 
his age. The incongruous precision by which impres- 
sions of savage beauty and terror are presented, still, 
however, betrays the eighteenth century, and the poems 
are singularly interesting monuments of a transforma- 
tion of poetic taste. 

These poems end the significant work of Gray in 
verse. But wholly to know him, one must turn also to 
his prose. 1 In his letters, late and early, and in his 
Journal in the Lakes, written two years before his death, 
Gray is more off his guard than in his verse: and they 
reveal him to have been in his instincts practically a 
modern man. One can trace through Gray's prose 
an almost complete prophecy of the awakening and 
growth of modern romantic feeling. It is full of evi- 
dences of exquisite taste and sound critical feeling, such 
as Matthew Arnold need not have disowned. It reveals 
the wide range of intellectual interests that doubtless 
helped to preserve the sanity of a nature inclined to 

1 Excellently edited by Mr. Gosse. 



THOMAS GEAY 67 

introspective brooding, if not to melancholia : and above 
ail it shows a feeling for natural beauty entirely new in 
his generation. "You cannot imagine/' Addison had writ- 
ten after vivid descriptions of the horrors of a journey 
across the Alps, "how pleased I am at the sight of a 
plain." But Gray, not many years later, can break into 
rhapsodies over the glory of the mountain landscape 
around the Grande Chartreuse : "Not a precipice, not a 
torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and 
poetry." Mountains to him were "monstrous creatures 
of God." The experiences of his spirit among the Eng- 
lish lakes or the Welsh hills are charming reading still. 
If one adds the testimony of the prose to that of the 
poetry, it is hard to avoid agreeing with Matthew 
Arnold that had Gray lived three-quarters of a century 
later, in a more favorable air, he might have proved 
himself, in quantity as in quality of achievement, a 
worthy comrade to Keats, Wordsworth, and Shelley. 
He lived in the twilight, when the romantic dawn was 
faint and chill: yet all who love the sober purity of 
the light before the sun has risen should love his poetry. 
"The style I have aimed at," he said, "is extreme 
conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and 
musical." Pure, perspicuous, musical ! They are words 
which no verse in the language more fully deserves 
than his. 

III. 

It is curious that a fastidious recluse, whose point 
of view was so largely academic as that of Gray, should 
have written what was long the most widely popular 
poem in English literature. The fact may suggest that 



68 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

the experiences and reflections of the keenest scholars 
are, after all, fundamentally much the same as those 
of everyone else: or it may show that the finest re- 
sources of poetic art are most effectively used on a 
subject of universal appeal. Someone has well pointed 
out that Gray doubtless found it as natural to write 
for his masterpiece a poem dealing with the common- 
places of our mortality as each new artist finds it to give 
to the world his conception of the Madonna. 

Gray kept the Elegy by him for a long while before 
he finally finished it and sent it to Walpole. Even then, 
he did not publish it until news of a pirated edition 
reached him • when it was published, he did not at first 
sign his name. The authorship, however, could not 
remain a secret : probably he did not really wish it to do 
so; and it is a credit to the times that the high excel- 
lence of the poem was at once recognized. 

The measure used by Gray, — the quatrain composed 
of iambic pentameters with alternate rhymes, — had 
been pronounced by Dryden, doubtless with some exag- 
geration, to be "the most magnificent that our language 
afforded." He had himself composed in it his Annus 
Mirabilis. Gray popularized the measure and in a way 
consecrated it to elegiac use. Its rich amplitude, even 
flow, and lofty dignity are evident at once. If we com- 
pare with the movement of this- stanza some of the 
exquisite lyrical measures in Gray, — as, for instance, in 
the Progress of Poesy or the unfinished Ode on Vicissi- 
tude, — the rare fineness of his ear and the variety in his 
singing tones will be evident at once. 

If the melody charms, the imagery is no less perfect, 
especially at the beginning and the end, which present 



THOMAS GEAY 69 

us with concrete pictures framing the more general re- 
flections of the central portion of the poem. The whole 
poem is "a twilight piece," to borrow a phrase from 
Browning; during the first four stanzas, the darkness 
gradually closes in, with exquisite gradations from dusk 
to moonlight. The atmosphere and the scene afford an 
ideal setting for pensive meditation, in which now and 
again the memory of "incense-breathing Morn" affords 
the beauty of contrast. 

It is even more true of the Elegy, than of Gray's other 
works that it is in one way not an original poem. To a 
cultured reader, the undertones of association constitute 
much of the charm. Every line can be annotated by 
parallel passages from other literatures, — Greek, Latin, 
Italian, French, and English. We shall mention in the 
notes only a few of such passages, and those chiefly from 
Milton, because to this poet Gray owed a special debt. 
But the process, if one has leisure, is interesting. It. as- 
suredly shows the breadth of Gray's reading, although 
one is tempted to ascribe many resemblances which the 
critics point out rather to natural coincidence than to 
conscious borrowing. But if Gray takes his good where 
he finds it, as the French proverb says, he makes it 
intimately his own. 

True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, — 
What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed. 

All poetry is more than is commonly recognized the 
consummate flower of a long social process, and a poem 
is none the worse, nay, it is better, because it puts the 
final stamp of perfect excellence on an idea which hun- 
dreds of writers have before rendered. 



70 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Not only is the theme of the Elegy commonplace, and 
the detail full of poetic echoes : the poem as a whole is 
the best example of a type of writing widely current at 
that time which is in itself so consciously literary as 
to seem to many artificial. The poetry of Milton in 
general, and his II Penseroso in particular, exerted a 
surprising influence over a whole group of jDoets dur- 
ing the middle of the eighteenth century. To revel 
in the sweets of Melancholy became the order of the 
day. Yet there was more in this than a literary 
fashion. In an age so lacking in poetic and positive 
inspiration, melancholy was the easiest and most natural 
mood for sensitive and imaginative men. Who can 
conceive a contemporary of Johnson's breaking into 
exultation, like Shelley in The Skylark, or penetrating 
to the deeper sources of permanent joy, like Wordsworth 
in The Daffodils f The mood of pensive reflection 
was the mood native to the age. Death, above all, is the 
great Eeality which no decorum can obscure: and on 
Death the sentiment of the time brooded incessantly. 
Two great and lovely poems stand out, in a mass of 
kindred verse, as the chief contribution of this mood to 
English poetry: the one is, of course, Gray's Elegy; 
the other is the Ode to Evening of William Collins. 
The two may well be compared, and it will be evident, 
despite entire difference in the scheme and subject, that 
the same order of feeling inspires them. Collins's ode 
reads like a commentary on the Elegy, expressing a 
temperament even more sensitive but less intellectual 
than that of Gray. 

We have placed the Elegy in its period and in its 
relation to poetic tradition and contemporary work. 



THOMAS GEAY 71 

The best way to feel its intrinsic value is to learn it by- 
heart and to let its quiet and stately music set the tune 
to a series of one's days. In spite of the fact that the 
poem is, as we have shown, the product of a definite 
Kterary movement, close acquaintance with it reveals 
two things that impart to it an intimate and individual 
charm. The first is the implied revelation of per- 
sonality: the second, the sense, rare indeed in a time 
which valued chiefly the exclusive, the sophisticated, and 
the novel, of fellowship with the universal, the simple, 
and the abiding : with Poverty and Labor, with Nature 
and with Death. 

Gray does not, to be sure, reveal himself as Shelley 
does in Adonais, or Tennyson in In Memoriam. Com- 
pared with these poems, also elegiac, the Elegy remains 
impersonal, even to the close. But it is in vain that 
the intentional pose, so to speak, retains that impersonal 
attitude demanded by the conventions of the time 
and grateful to Gray's natural reserve. The whole tone 
of the poem, its every detail and cadence, reveal a per- 
sonal feeling uninterrupted by one false or jarring note. 
The twilight landscape at the opening, and the sub- 
dued sadness of the general reflections on mortality 
lead to the last stanzas, where we get the direct picture 
of the poet's soul. For Gray, by a slight turn, looks 
forward and thinks of himself as buried in the church- 
yard; and so the poem does not, after all, confine itself 
to general musings, but, like Bion's Elegy on Mosclius, 
or Shelley's Adonais, or Milton's Lycidas, mourns with 
a note of individual sorrow, touched in this case by 
self-pity, over one dear dead youth. 

In this self-revelation we have an earnest of that 



72 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

poetry of the interior life which was to be the gift of 
the nineteenth century to the world. No less do we find 
in the Elegy a faint prophecy of the democratic breadth 
of the coming age. Gray not only draws from deeper 
wells than most of his contemporaries; he also gazes 
wider afield. The "storied urn and animated bust" — 
such trophies of the distinguished dead as greet the 
tourists' eyes in every large English church — do not 
arrest him. Outside, under the yew-tree, he loves to 
linger, tenderly meditating on the graves of the humble 
and unknown. If the familiar lines concerning the 
emptiness of worldly glory read like platitudes, let us 
realize that these are platitudes all too seldom appre- 
hended as truths. Eeverence for "the short and simple 
annals of the poor," gives to the Elegy high sincerity and 
enduring worth. 

Yet, in conclusion, it is hard; to resist a sense of 
disappointment when one sets the Elegy beside other 
great elegies of the English race. For the first thing 
that strikes one about all these other poems, is, that 
the thought of Death is transfigured in them by the 
thought of Immortality. In Lycidas, the elegy of the 
seventeenth century, classical memories blend strangely 
with the Hebraic theme, but echoes of 

The inexpressive nuptial song 
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love 

sound through the Miltonic harmonies. In Adonais, the 
elegy of the post-Eevolutionary age, though the thought 
of personal immortality is absent, the poet is rapt by 
the vision of the soul of man as "a portion of the 
Eternal." In In Memoriam, the Victorian elegy, 



THOMAS GEAY 73 

Tennyson through many tempests reaches an assured 
haven, whence he perceives triumphantly that Love can 
never be bound of Death. Compared with these, we 
must indeed feel that Gray's world is "left to darkness." 
In vain we long that he should lift his eyes, if only 
for one brief moment, from graves to stars. Nay, — 
place the Elegy, not heside a supreme expression" of vic- 
torious faith, like Adonais or In Memoriam, but beside 
a casual poem like Wordsworth's We Are Seven, — are 
we not forced to recognize that the little cottage girl, 
with her clustering curls, who persistently counts her 
dead brothers and sisters among her living playfellows, 
had a vision denied to the poet-scholar ? But let us not 
ask from Gray what he cannot give us. Eather let us 
recognize what he brings : a deep sense of the realities of 
human life, a grave piety, a sensitive and pure emotion 
that never lacks the restraining grace of self-control. 
And all these are expressed in verse whose high perfec- 
tion of finish, whose noble harmonies and lovely images, 
make an appeal to the universal heart that time can not 
wither nor custom stale. 



ELEGY, WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY 
CHURCHYARD. 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, 

The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

5 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; 

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r, 
10 The moping owl does to the moon complain 
Of such as, wandering near her secret bow'r, 
Molest her ancient solitary reign. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, 
15 Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, 

The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, 
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
20 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; 
74 



GBAY'S ELEGY 75 

No children run to lisp their sire V return, 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 

25 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; 
How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 

How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! 

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
30 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 
Eor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
35 Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 
40 The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 

Can storied urn, or animated bust, 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 

Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, 
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death ? 

45 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, 
Hands, that the rod of empire might have .sway'd, 
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. 



76 



SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 



But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page 
30 Eich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll ; 
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of the soul. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene 

The dark unf athom'd caves of ocean bear ; 
55 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast 

The little Tyrant of his fields withstood, 
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, 
60 Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 

Th' applause of listening senates to command, 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, 

65 Their lot forbade : nor circumscrib'd alone 

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd ; 
Forbade to wade thro' slaughter to a throne, 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; 

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
70 To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 

f 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray ; J 



GBAY'S ELEGY 77 

'5 Along the cool sequester'd vale of life 

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, 

Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 
With uncouth rh}anes and shapeless sculpture deck'd 
10 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse, 

The place of fame and elegy supply ; 
And many a holy text around she strews, 

That teach the rustic moralist to die. 

85 For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, 
This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, 
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? 

On some fond breast the parting soul relies, 
90 Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; 
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. 

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, 
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate ; 
95 If chance, by lonely Contemplation led, 

Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate, — 

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 

"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, 
100 To meet the sun upon the upland lawn : 






78 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 

His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 

105 "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove ; 
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn, 
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. 

"One morn I miss'd him on the customed hill, 
Ho Along the heath, and near his f av'rite tree ; 
Another came ; nor yet beside the rill, 
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he ; 

"The next, with dirges due in sad array, 

Slow through the church-way path we saw him 
. borne : — 
115 Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." 

THE EPITAPH. 

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, 

A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown : 
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, 
120 And Melancholy marked him for her own. 

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send ; 

He gave to Misery all he had, a tear, 

He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a 
friend. 



GBAY'S ELEGY 79 

123 No farther seek his merits to disclose, 

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, 
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,) 
The bosom of his Father and his God. 

ELEGY WEITTEN IN A COUNTEY CHUECHYAED. 

NOTES. 

Line 1. Gray himself annotated this line by quoting an ex- 
quisite passage from the opening of the eighth canto of Dante's 
Purgatorio : 

Squilla di lontano, 
Che paia il giorno pianger che si muore. 

The translation of the whole passage is : " 'Twas now the hour 
. . . that pierces the new pilgrim with love, if from afar he hears 
the chimes which seem to mourn for the dying day." 

Curfew: From "couvre-feu" : a bell rung during the middle ages 
about eight o'clock, to bid people cover their fires and put out 
their lights. A few years ago, the curfew could still be heard in 
some parts of England. 

2. Wind: Another reading is "winds," but "wind" is better. 
Gray wants us to see the cattle meandering over the meadow, as 
their habit is when homeward-bound, rather than going in a 
straight file. 

Lea: An old word for meadow. 

3. Why did Gray use so many long o's? E. g., "tolls," "lowing," 
"slowly," "homeward." 

5. Glimmering: This is the only time that Gray uses this 
word, though at one other point he has "glimmerings." "Glitter- 
ing," on the other hand, is a great favorite with him. 

6. What is the subject of "holds"? Watch Gray's habit with 
regard to inversions. 

8. As the darkness grows, we begin to hear more than we see. 
Note the drone of the beetle, the "drowsy tinkling" of far cow- 
bells, the hooting owl. Gray, like Wordsworth, knew how many 
sounds that would escape attention in daylight seem, as dusk 
gathers, to fill while they do not interrupt the silence. 

13. Yew-tree's shade: Yews are common in English church- 
yards. Compare Tennyson's In Memoriam, Canto II : 

Old Yew, which graspest at the stones 
That name the underlying dead, 
Thy fibres net the dreamless head, 

Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. 



oq SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

O not for thee the glow, the bloom, 

Who changest not in any gale, 

Nor branding summer suns avail 
To touch thy thousand years of gloom. 

Perhaps the finest yews in English poetry are Wordsworth's 
"Fraternal Four of Borrowdale," in Yew-Trees — 

A pillared shade, 
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, 
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged 
Perennially, — beneath whose sable roof 
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked 
With unrejoicing berries, — ghostly Shapes 
May meet at noon-tide ; Fear and trembling Hope, 
Silence and Foresight ; Death the Skeleton 
And Time the Shadow. 

16. Rude, in the sense of "humble," "low," "uncivilized," "un- 
polished." 

17. Note how the sounds of this lovely stanza contrast with 
those that preceded. Gray presents his dawn, like his twilight, 
through sound rather than sight impressions. 

Paraphrase incense-breathing. The word was absent from an 
early version. What do we gain from it? 

21. Compare with the picture suggested in this stanza that 
elaborated by Burns in The Cotter's Saturday Night. Burns used 
the next stanza but one as a motto for his poem. 

22. Ply her evening care: "Whether the phrase be good or bad, 
It is the kind of diction against which Wordsworth vigorously 
protested. When he had occasion to describe a similar scene, he 
wrote : 

She I cherished turned her wheel 
Beside an English fire." — Wattrous. 

It is good exercise to go through the Elegy distinguishing the 
places where Gray uses the concrete language native to poetry 
from those in which he slips into the generalized and abstract 
speech common to his age. 

26. Glebe: "The cultivated land belonging to a parish church 
or ecclesiastical benefice." 

27. Drive their team afield: See Milton's Lycidas, line 27. 
29. Do you like the personifications? 

33. The boast of heraldry: The pride of rank. Birth, force, 
beauty, and wealth are of course four things most valued by the 
world : they lead to glory as a climax. 

35. Aioaits is often printed "await." But Gray wrote the word 



GKAY'S ELEGY: NOTES 81 

as in the text. He was steeped in Milton and had learned from 
his master a love of inversions. 

36. This is the passage quoted by General Wolfe on his way to 
take Quebec and die : ''For two full hours the procession of boats, 
borne on the current, steered silently down the St. Lawrence. The 
stars were visible, but the night was moonless and sufficiently 
dark. The general was in one of the foremost boats, and near 
him was a young midshipman, John Robison, afterwards professor 
of natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. He used to 
tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low voice, repeated Gray's 
Elegy in a Country Churchyard to the officers about him. Probably 
it was to relieve the intense strain of his thoughts. Among the 
rest was the verse which his own fate was soon to illustrate : 
'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.' 'Gentlemen,' he said as 
his recital ended, 'I would rather have written those lines than 
take Quebec' None were there to tell him that the hero is greater 
than the poet." Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, II, 285. 

This story has lately been investigated and substantiated. 

39. Fretted: A fret is an architectural ornament, made by 
carving, cutting or embossing. 

41. Storied: "Storied windows richly dight." II Penseroso. . 

Stained glass picturing stories, from saint-legend or scripture. 

43. Provoke the silent dust: Provoke in the etymological sense 
of "call forth." 

51. Rage: What sort of "rage" deserves the epithet "noble"? 
Gray broods more calmly over the possible waste of genius entailed 
by "chill penury" than we do today. 

52. Genial may mean "warm, kindly," or "native, inborn." 
53-56. Platitudes, but perfectly put. 

57. There is an interesting early version to this stanza. Gray, 
fine classical scholar that he was, first wrote : 

Some village Cato, who, with dauntless breath, 
The little Tyrant of his fields withstood, 

Some mute inglorious Tully here may rest, 
Some Caesar guiltless of his country's blood. 

The change to the English names was a bold act in those days 
of literary convention. It gives much more reality to this picture 
of an English Churchyard. The new form has an added force 
when we realize that Hampden, the patriot of the days of Charles I, 
lived in the county of the Churchyard, and that Milton finished his 
Paradise Lost only a few miles away. Gray's allusion to Cromwell 
reflects the general attitude of the eighteenth century- It was not 
till Carlyle wrote that Cromwell came to be appreciated at his 
true value. 



82 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

It would be well for the student to compare the ancients of the 
first version with the moderns of the second and to explain why in 
each case one name could fill the place of the other. 

61. Here begins' a long periodic sentence, quite in the Latin 
manner. But the continuity between stanzas affords a pleasant 
variety to the ear. 

71. Gray is thinking cf the adulation given to noble or royal 
patrons by literature. Cf. the mass of flattering verse addressed 
to Queen Elizabeth. At this time, the system of patronage was 
dying hard. See Johnson's Letter to Lord Chesterfield. 

In Gray's first manuscript, the poem continued with the four 
following stanzas, with which, as Mason, Gray's friend, tells us, 
it was meant to conclude. Note how carefully Gray wove the 
phrases which he liked best in these lines into the final version : 

The thoughtless world to majesty may bow, 

Exalt the brave, and idolize success ; 
But more to innocence their safety owe, 

Than pow'r or genius e'er conspired to bless. 

And thou who mindful of th' unhonor'd dead 
Dost in these notes their artless tale relate, 

By night and lonely contemplation led 
To wander in the gloomy walks of fate ; 

Hark, how the sacred calm, that breathes around, 
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease : 

In still small accents whisp'ring from the ground, 
A grateful earnest of eternal peace. 

No more, with reason and thyself at strife, 
Give anxious cares and endless wishes room ; 

But through the cool sequester'd vale of life 
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom. 

73. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife: Madding means 
not maddening, but acting madly. 

76. Tenor: From the Latin tenor, a holding-on. 

81. There is a mis-spelled epitaph on a tomb-stone under the 
very yew pointed out as standing in Gray's time in the grave-yard 
of Stoke Pogis, which is the scene of the Elegy. 

86. Pleasing anxious: Note the fine epitome of human experi- 
ence in these two words. 

93. The abrupt turn at this point gives a new and personal 
interest to the generalizations of the poem. But Gray's reticence 



GKAY'S ELEGY: NOTES 83 

still preserves a little veil by his device of apostrophizing himself 
in the third person. 

95. Chance: Perchance. 

97. The Hoary-headed swain walks out of an eighteenth-century 
pastoral, not out of a real village. Wordsworth would never have 
used this phrase. 

99. See Paradise Lost, V. 429. 

100. After this stanza, in the first version, followed four lines : 
it is hard to see why they were omitted, since, as Mason says, 
they have "the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms us 
peculiarly in this part of the poem," and as he also points out, 
they complete the account of the poet's day : 



Him have we seen the greenwood side along, 
While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done, 

Oft as the woodlark pip'd her farewell song, 
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun. 

101. If any proof were needed that Gray has himself in mind in 
this pathetic portrait of the young poet, it may be found in the 
following passage from a letter written by him to Walpole in 
September, 1737. The wood described is that containing the famous 
Burnham beeches : 

"I have at the distance of half a mile through a green lane, a 
forest (the vulgar call it a common) all my own, at least as good 
as so, for I spy no human thing in it but myself. It is a little 
chaos of mountains and precipices. . . . Both vale and hill 
are covered with most venerable beeches, and other very reverend 
vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are always dream- 
ing out their old stories to the winds. . . 

"At the foot of one of these squats ME ; (I, II Penseroso) and 
there grow to a trunk the whole morning." 

111. Another, day, not person. 

116. Here came, in the original version, an omitted stanza which 
almost everyone wishes that Gray had retained ; for there is none 
more beautiful in the Elegy. His reason for leaving it out was to 
have the Epitaph follow directly the invitation to read. But he 
hesitated, constantly inserting the stanza and then omitting it 
again, so that Mr. Gosse says that we need not regard it as finally 
cancelled : 

There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, 
By hands unseen are show'rs of violets found ; 

The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground. 



84 SHQETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

119. Fair Science: Gray habitually uses Science in the sense of 
learning or knowledge. See his Ode on a Distant Prospect of 
Eton College, line 3 : 

Where grateful Science still adores 
Her Henry's holy shade. 

128. Do you agree with some critics who find the Epitaph more 
frigid and artificial than the rest of the poem? Or does it touch 
yeu? 



OLIVEE GOLDSMITH 



85 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 1728—1774. 
I. 

It was in a good year for English letters that Oliver 
Goldsmith was born : for in this year Pope published 
his Dunciad, Thomson his poem on Spring, and Gay 
his Beggar's Opera. Goldsmith, unlike the three poets 
just mentioned, was an Irishman. His father was a 
poor, unworldly, and gentle Protestant clergyman. 
The boy, until he was seventeen, lived in the country. 
He was thought to be a dull child, and the smallpox 
disfigured his face so that he remained to the end of 
his life unusually ugly. He attended Trinity College, 
Dublin : Burke was there at the same time, but the two 
youths did not know each other. Goldsmith was not 
happy in his college life, but he took his degree in 
1749, lowest in the list. He knocked about for a few 
years; studied medicine at the University of Edin- 
burgh, and later at Leyden: and wandered over the 
Continent, penniless, and making his way by various 
devices, much as students in the middle ages used to 
do. Sometimes he earned his passage by flute-playing. 
He has given a pretty account in The Traveller of the 
sprightly French peasants dancing to the music of 
the strolling Irish player. 

At twenty-seven, Goldsmith settled down in London 
for the remainder of his life. He had a doctor's de- 
gree ; but it was as a man of letters that he picked up 
a precarious living. London was at this time full of 
87 



88 SHOKTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

authors. A large reading public had grown up during 
the eighteenth century, so that writers were escaping 
from their old thraldom to rich patrons and growing 
able to support themselves independently. But the 
task was no easy one, and the best writers of the day, 
unless, like Gray, they held an academic position, were 
likely to know a hard struggle. No one struggled 
harder than Goldsmith. Beneath an indolent exterior 
he concealed an immense power of work, as anyone 
who reads the long list of his hack writings can see. 
He was always carelessly generous and he lived from 
hand to mouth : but no one could call him lazy. Like 
most writers of the day, he began by writing for the 
numerous periodicals, which, following the fashion set 
by Addison and Steele, were the chief literary type 
then current. It was not long before some of these 
papers, collected later under the title The Citizen of 
the World, made a hit. They were an entertaining 
study of English life from the point of view of an 
imaginary visitor from China : a device revived in our 
own day by Mr. Lowes-Dickenson in his Letters of a 
Chinese Official. Goldsmith was already favorably 
known by an Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning 
in Europe, published in 1759. And now, when he was 
only a little over thirty years old, he formed the ac- 
quaintance, soon to ripen into friendship, of the burly 
and lovable dictator of English letters with whom his 
name is always associated, — Dr. Johnson. Johnson 
was the centre of the literary life of London. The 
doings of the brilliant group in which Goldsmith 
played a part secondary only to his own is chronicled 
for all time by his biographer, Boswell ; to the pages of 



OLIVEE GOLDSMITH 89 

the immortal biographer and to the other memoirs of 
the period, the student must turn for an inimitably 
vivid record of the personality and ways, the speech, 
the tastes, the habits of those good comrades and great 
men, over whose converse everyone loves to linger, — 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Burke, Garrick, Goldsmith. 
Here we can only chronicle the story, told by Johnson 
himself, how late in the year 1764 Goldsmith in great 
distress sent for Johnson, having been arrested for 
rent: how Johnson bore away a manuscript novel, 
called The Vicar of Wakefield, sold it for sixty 
pounds, — three hundred dollars, — and set his friend 
free. The price was little for that delightful work: 
yet the fact that Johnson could secure such a sum 
proves that Goldsmith had already a certain 
reputation. 

More prosperous days came later. Many of the 
ablest men in the eighteenth century were unhappy: 
several, including Gray, Collins, Cowper, and Johnson 
himself, were over-shadowed by mental disease. But 
Goldy, as the great Doctor called him, was apparently 
a fairly happy man, who enjoyed his friends, his trips 
into the country and to the Continent, and not least 
the innocent personal vanities which are mercilessly 
recorded for us in contemporary accounts. He 
achieved distinction in one line of letters after another. 
First known as a light essayist, his poem The 
Traveller, published in 1764, when he was thirty-six 
years old, gave him a leading position among writers 
of verse, a position confirmed by The Deserted Village 
six years later. His novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, 
published in 1766, found its way at once to people's 



90 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

hearts: and his two dramas, The Good-Natured Man 
(1767) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771), had a 
charm that still holds the stage. Goldsmith was a 
blunderer in social converse, and funny stories are 
told of his awkwardness and simplicity. Yet he had 
on occasion a pretty wit of his own, and if people 
laughed at him, they loved him. When news came of 
his death, Burke burst into tears and Reynolds 
painted no more that day. "Let not his frailties be 
remembered: he was a very great man," said Dr. 
Johnson. " Frailties" he had in abundance, but his 
instincts were pure and gay, his spirit was sensitive to 
all fine things, his whole nature, in a worldly age, was 
unworldly, tender, and sincere. In that famous 
group there is no other man who appeals so warmly 
to the affections. 

II. 

Goldsmith is one of the most charming and versatile 
of English writers. Great writers usually do one 
thing supremely well. Shakespeare wrote dramas, 
Shelley lyrics, Thackeray novels. Goldsmith did 
many things: none supremely, all delightfully. We 
need not speak of the hack work he conscientiously 
performed, the History of England, the compilations 
of scientific information: putting these aside, how 
much remains! Goldsmith's essays, especially those 
collected as The Citizen of the World, are the most 
graceful writing of that order between Addison and 
Lamb : his two dramas are, with the exception of the 
plays of Sheridan, the most living comedies in an 
undramatic age : The Vicar of Wakefield is an idyll 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 91 

that has become a classic : and the two companion 
poems, The Deserted Village and The Traveller, give 
him an assured place among English poets. 

Goldsmith wrote in the middle of the eighteenth 
century. The men who carried on the pseudo-classic 
traditions were his contemporaries; so too were the 
leaders of the romantic revolt, Gray, Collins, Dr. 
Percy of the Reliques, and Horace Walpole. The 
great novelists, Eichardson, (for whom he was 
once proofreader) Fielding, and Smollett, had im- 
mediately preceded him. The stars of Gibbon, Hume, 
and Adam Smith were rising. For the Romantic 
school Goldsmith had no liking, and he adhered 
stoutly to old forms: but nevertheless the new spirit 
is in his work. True, it shows no trace of that awaken- 
ing imaginative passion memorable in the poems of 
Gray and Collins. Goldsmith's imagination was 
weak: his subjects were drawn from what he had 
observed or experienced in the flesh, and when, as in 
The Citizen of the World, he spins a thread of story 
out of pure fantasy, his work is laughable to a 
degree. But if deficient in imagination, it is redolent 
of feeling. Emotion of that purest type in which 
tears and laughter blend, makes The Vicar of Wake- 
field a limpid source of refreshment, whether to a 
Goethe or to a little school-girl. His comedies are 
provocative of hearty laughter, but the laughter is 
innocent and loving, not barbed with a sneer like the 
laughter of Swift or Pope. 

It is humor indeed that saves his sentiment from 
sentimentality, and it is largely humor that enables us 
to claim Goldsmith as one of the pioneers of literary 



92 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

realism. His realism is not sustained. Sweet Auburn 
may be a true village, but the inhabitants wend their 
way to a country of fantasy. The plot of The Vicar of 
Wakefield is full of harmless conventions; nor is the 
joyous world of the comedies quite the actual world. 
Yet there is evident in all Goldsmith's writings the 
instinctive quest of simplicity and truth. He really 
prefers the Vicar of Wakefield for a hero to any of 
the fine folk who move in stately minuet through the 
literature of the age of Queen Anne. He was in a 
sense a man of the world; his essays attest a keen if 
not profound gift of social criticism (as in the enter- 
taining panegyric of the beauty of the ladies of China 
as compared with those of England) ; yet he was never 
worldly. His books evince a nature of rare delicacy, 
in which the keynote is a gentle sincerity that charms 
us still. Many eighteenth century writers seem suc- 
cessfully to hide themselves when they write : if it 
were not for Boswell, who would know Dr. Johnson? 
Goldsmith, on the contrary, revealed himself, and 
the man he reveals is one whom everyone must love. 

III. 

"Warm sympathy mingles with keen powers of 
observation in The Traveller, a poem that records the 
impressions of different nations received by Goldsmith 
in his youthful travels. Perhaps the powers of obser- 
vation are the more evident. The poem is full of 
general statements, aptly put, about great countries 
and various racial types. But The Deserted Village 
has always been the more popular of the two poems, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 93 

just because it is the one in which Goldsmith's heart 
speaks most clearly. It lingers fondly over the fate 
of one little village such as he loved when a boy. 
It may not possess the highest qualities of poetry: 
but it is written in English beautifully pure; it is 
full of feeling and of gentle humorous wisdom; it 
gives us delightful sketches of innocent country life 
and of two or three quaint village people; and with 
all its quiet tone, it is aflame with a noble passion for 
social justice and a fine, hot sympathy with the wrongs 
of the poor. 

Let us first note the form of the poems. In the 
preface to The Traveller Goldsmith says: "What 
criticisms have we not heard of late, in favor of 
blank verse, Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests, and 
iambics, alliterative care, and happy negligence ! " It 
happened that Gray had recently published his Pin- 
daric Odes, and that discussion had indeed been rife 
regarding the advisability of enlarging the borders 
of poetic style. Goldsmith was a conservative so 
far as the metrical form of his poems is concerned. 
He adhered to the chief poetic tradition of his cen- 
tury in using the so-called heroic couplet which had 
been brought to perfection by Dryden and Pope and 
which had for more than one generation driven all 
free movement of poetic feeling out of the field in 
favor of " a wit all see-saw between That, and This. ' ' 
We may question whether the couplet, with its demand 
for epigrammatic conciseness, was the best possible 
vehicle for the sympathetic picture of village life 
which Goldsmith desired to present in The Deserted 
Village. It was better adapted to the generalizations 



94 SHORTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

of The Traveller. But in both poems he draws from 
his measure, to a certain degree, effects of a new 
order. His treatment is less brilliant than spon- 
taneous. Pope's couplets are chiselled like a cameo. 
Goldsmith's flow quietly, like his own "glassy" and 
"never-failing brook" between their careful banks. 
Goldsmith has more touches of pure poetry and fewer 
rhetorical figures. Pope could no more have written 
the line "Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the 
thorn" than Goldsmith could have described the 
toilette of Belinda. If we have fewer antitheses and 
epigrams in Goldsmith, however, we have a like per- 
fection of finish within the limits of the line or coup- 
let, a like search for condensation and for classical 
precision of outline. Another age was to break loose 
from tradition altogether and to draw from the coup- 
let a music fresh and strange. Compare these four 
well-known lines from The Deserted Village with the 
passage from Keats 's Sleep and Poetry which follows : 

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form 
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

Yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
Trees young and old, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep. 

Note how great the gain to the modern ear from the 
freedom and variety with which Keats 's music over- 
flows the ends of lines. But no one was writing in 
this way in Goldsmith's time. He made a singularly 



OLIVEE GOLDSMITH 95 

perfect use of the instrument ready to his hand, and 
it is profitable to study his diction line by line, noting 
how each word is charged with significance and each 
phrase adds to the luminous completeness of the 
whole. Bartlett in his Familiar Quotations gives no 
less than forty-one lines from The Traveller, and 
seventy-four from The Deserted Village. These sur- 
prising figures show how thoroughly England has 
made the poems her own. 

The description of Auburn is full of reminiscences 
of Lissoy, the Irish village where Goldsmith lived as 
a child. People said then that the eviction of the 
peasants in obedience to the cruel greed of the land- 
lord might occur across the Channel, but could not 
happen in England. Goldsmith, as may be seen in 
the graceful dedication of the poem to Sir Joshua 
Eeynolds, insisted that it could: but without doubt 
dim memories of what happened in sorrowful Erin 
affected his ostensible pictures of English life. The 
portraits of the Parson and the Schoolmaster, which 
give the poem so much of its charm, are Irish por- 
traits : The Parson was drawn partly from his father, 
partly from the beloved brother to whom he dedi- 
cated The Traveller, and who, like the Parson in the 
poem, was, he tells us, "passing rich on forty pounds 
a year." This description is one of the best char- 
acter studies in English verse. It is curiously like 
Chaucer's account of his poor parson in the Prologue 
to The Canterbury Tales; and every student should 
compare the two passages and note with interest how 
the humble service of the People in the Name of God 
has produced the same types from age to age. There 



96 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

is more Iramor in the portrait of the Schoolmaster, 
Goldsmith's old teacher in Lissoy, — yet this picture, 
too, is full of sympathy. Indeed, the sympathy in all 
these studies puts The Deserted Village in quite a dif- 
ferent class from the clever character-sketching in 
verse practiced by Pope and Dryden. It is interesting 
to compare such a study as Zimri in Dryden 's Absalom 
and Achitophel, or Atticus in Pope's Epistle to Dr. 
Arbuthnot with these loving verses of Goldsmith's. 
Dryden and Pope point their couplets with venom. 
Goldsmith's laugh is always affectionate. Does satire 
or sympathy, criticism or affection, penetrate to a 
deeper understanding of character? All literature 
and life suggest the question. 

Poetry, said Milton, should be "simple, sensuous, 
and passionate," and Wordsworth adds that poetry 
can only exist where "it can find an atmosphere of 
sensation in which to move its wings." Goldsmith, 
like most men of his day, was careless of this truth, 
and in parts of his poems abstractions ring cold on 
the ear. Yet even in these, though the poetry may 
flag, the thought and spirit are fine ; the wide social 
outlook bespeaks a man not only of tender heart but 
of clear, grave intellectual vision. Goldsmith may 
have been hazy about his economic facts in detail: 
but that absorption of the land of England by great 
estates, which so moved his indignation, is a crying 
evil which still strikes the eye even of the tourist, and 
which is even now vigorously demanding redress 
through political struggle. Perhaps the poet's evicted 
immigrants never made their way to those dimly- 
conceived regions "where wild Altama murmurs to 



OLIVEE GOLDSMITH 97 

their woe." But there were plenty of evictions in 
Ireland, and today many a depopulated village in 
southern Italy shows conditions not literally similar 
nor due to the same cause as those described by Gold- 
smith, yet vividly suggested by his lines. It is with 
a fine turn at the end that the poet sees, no longer 
the poor simple people, but the, rural virtues them- 
selves, sadly leaving the land where luxury and greed 
have become masters: some of his ringing couplets 
may well sound in our American ears today, as he 
tells us 

how wide the limits stand 
Between a splendid and a happy land. 

or exclaims in noble anger, 

111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; 

These poems, then, follow in many respects the 
pseudo-classic tradition of the eighteenth century. 
But they also mark the quickening of a new spirit. 
Far more explicitly than Gray's Elegy they shift the 
centre of interest from court and town and the arti- 
ficial society which Pope and Addison and the novel- 
ists of the age revelled in describing, to simple village 
life. The Deserted Village, in particular, is suffused 
by undisguised tenderness, and it is full of solicitude 
for the humble, and of a social passion in which Gold- 
smith is distinctly in advance of his generation, and 
a precursor of the school that is to the fore today in 
political economy. We can trace in it but vaguely 
that rebirth of beauty and of wonder already dimly 
prophesied in the poetry of Gray and of Collins: 



98 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

but we do find in it a harbinger of that poetry of 
personal sentiment and of democratic sympathies 
which was to be one of the glories of the coming age. 
The poem points the way to Burns 's The Cotter's 
Saturday Night, to Wordsworth 's Michael and Leech- 
Gatherer, and to all those interpretations of the 
beauty and pathos in the lives of the poor which were 
to form a distinctive feature alike of the poetry and 
the fiction of the nineteenth century. 



THE TRAVELLER. 

DEDICATION. 
TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH. 

Dear Sir, — I am sensible that the friendship be- 
tween us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies 
of a dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse 
thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you 
decline giving with your own. But as a part of 
this poem was formerly written to you from Switzer- 
land, the whole can now, with propriety, be only 
inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon 
many parts of it, when the reader understands that 
it is addressed to a man who, despising fame and 
fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, 
with an income of forty pounds a year. 

I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of 
your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred 
office, where the harvest is great, and the laborers are 



THE TRAVELLER 99 

but few; while you have left the field of ambition, 
where the laborers are many, and the harvest not 
worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, 
— what from the refinement of the times, from differ- 
ent systems of criticism, and from the divisions of 
party, — that which pursues poetical fame is the 
wildest. 

Poetry makes a principal amusement among un- 
polished nations; but in a country verging to the 
extremes of refinement, painting and music come in 
for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less 
laborious entertainment, they at first rival poetry, 
and at length supplant her : they engross all that 
favor once shown to her, and, though but younger 
sisters, seize upon the elder's birthright. 

Yet, however this art may be neglected by the 
powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mis- 
taken efforts of the learned to improve it. What 
criticisms have we not heard of late in favor of blank 
verse and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests and 
iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! 
Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; 
and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has 
always much to say; for error is ever talkative. 

But there is an enemy to this art still more danger- 
ous — I mean party. Party entirely distorts the judg- 
ment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once 
infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in 
what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the 
tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after 
having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who 
has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, 



100 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered 
reputation. Such readers generally admire some 
half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold 
man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him 
they dignify with the name of poet : his tawdry lam- 
poons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be 
force, and his frenzy fire. 

What reception a poem may find, which has neither 
abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot 
tell, nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. 
Without espousing the cause of any party, I have at- 
tempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeav- 
ored to show, that there may be equal happiness in 
states that are differently governed from our own; 
that every state has a particular principle of happi- 
ness, and that this principle in each may be carried 
to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge, 
better than yourself, how far these positions are illus- 
trated in this poem. I am, dear Sir, 

Your most affectionate Brother, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, — 
Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po ; 
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor 
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door; 

5 Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies, 
A weary waste expanding to the skies; — 
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee; 
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, ~ 

10 And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 



THE TEAVELLEE 101 

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, 
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend: 
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire; 

15 Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, 
And every stranger finds a ready chair; 
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown 'd, 
Where all the, ruddy family around 
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 

20 Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale, 
Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
And learn the luxury of doing good. 

But me, not destin'd such delights to share, 
My prime of life in wandering spent and care — 

25 Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue 

Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view ; 
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies, 
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies; — 
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, 

30 And find no spot of all the world my own. 
Ev'n now, where Alpine solitudes ascend, 
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend; 
And, plac'd on high above the storm's career, 
Look downward where an hundred realms appear : 

35 Lakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide, 
The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride. 

"When thus creation's charms around combine, 
Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine? 
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain 
40 That good which makes each humbler bosom vain ? 
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can, 



102 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

These little things are great to little man; 

And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind 

Exults in all the good of all mankind. 
45 Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendor 
crown 'd, 

Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round, 

Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale, 

Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale; 

For me your tributary stores combine : 
50 Creation 's heir, the world — the world is mine ! 

As some lone miser, visiting his store, 
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er: 
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill, 
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still : 

55 Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, 
Pleas 'd with each good that Heaven to man supplies : 
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall, 
To see the hoard of human bliss so small; 
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find 

60 Some spot to real happiness consign 'd, 
Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest 
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest. 

But where to find that happiest spot below, 
Who can direct, when all pretend to know? 

65 The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone 
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own ; 
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, 
And his long nights of revelry and ease; 
The naked negro, panting at the line, 

70 Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, 
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, 



THE TRAVELLER 103 

And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. 

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam; 

His first, best country ever is at home. 
75 And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, 

And estimate the blessings which they share, 

Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find 

An equal portion dealt to all mankind; 

As different good, by art or nature given, 
[80 To different nations makes their blessings even. 

Nature, a mother kind alike to all, 
Still grants her bliss at labor's earnest call; 
With food as well the peasant is supplied 
On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side; 

85 And, though the rocky-crested summits frown, 
These rocks by custom turn to beds of down. 
From art more various are the blessings sent: 
Wealth, commerce, honor, liberty, content. 
Yet these each other's power so strong contest, 

90 That either seems destructive of the rest. 

Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails, 
And honor sinks where commerce long prevails. 
Hence every state, to one lov'd blessing prone, 
Conforms and models life to that alone : 

95 Each to the favorite happiness attends, 

And spurns the plan that aims at other ends; 
Till, carried to excess in each domain, 
This favorite good begets peculiar pain. 

But let us try these truths with closer eyes, 
ioo And trace them through the prospect as it lies. 
Here for a while, my proper cares resign 'd, 
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind : 



104 SHOKTEB ENGLISH POEMS 



Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast, 
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast. 

105 Far to the right, where Apennine ascends, 
Bright as the summer, Italy extends; 
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side, 
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride ; 
"While oft some temple's mouldering tops between 

no With venerable grandeur mark the scene. 
Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast, 
The sons of Italy were surely blest. 
Whatever fruits in different climes are found, 
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground; 

lis Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear, 

Whose bright succession decks the varied year; 
Whatever sweets salute ^the northern sky 
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die: 
These, here disporting, own the kindred soil, 

120 Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil; 
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand 
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land. 

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, 
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows. 

125 In florid beauty groves and fields appear, 

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. 
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign: 
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain; 
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; 

130 And even in penance planning sins anew. 
All evils here contaminate the mind, 
That opulence departed leaves behind. 
For wealth was theirs ; not far remov 'd the date, 






THE TRAVELLER 105 

When commerce proudly flourished through the state. 

135 At her command the palace learnt to rise, 
Again the long-fallen column sought the skies; 
The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n nature warm, 
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form; 
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale, 

140 Commerce on other shores display 'd her sail; 
While nought remain 'd of all that riches gave, 
But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave a 
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill, 
Its former strength was but plethoric ill. 

145 Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied 

By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride ; 

From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind 

An easy compensation seem to find. 

Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array 'd, 
150 The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade ; 

Processions form'd for piety and love, 

A mistress or a saint in every grove. 

By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd, 

The sports of children satisfy the child; 
155 Each nobler aim, rep rest by long control, 

Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul; 

While low delights, succeeding fast behind, 

In happier meanness occupy the mind. 

As in those domes where Cassars once bore sway, 
i60Defac'd by time and tottering in decay, 

There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, 

The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed; 

And, wondering man could want the larger pile, 

Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. 



106 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

165 My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey 
Where rougher climes a nobler race display; 
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread, 
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. 
No product here the barren hills afford, 

170 But man and steel, the soldier and his sword ; 
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, 
But winter lingering chills the lap of May; 
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast, 
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest. 

175 Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, 
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. 
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though 

small, 
He sees his little lot the lot of all; 
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head 

180 To shame the meanness of his humble shed ; 
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal 
To make him loathe his vegetable meal; 
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, 
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil. 

185 Cheerful, at morn, he wakes from short repose, 
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes; 
With patient angle trolls the finny deep, 
Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep; 
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way, 

190 And drags the struggling savage into day. 
At night returning, every labor sped, 
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed; 
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys 
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze; 






THE TEAVELLEE 107 

195 While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard, 
Displays her cleanly platter on the board ; 
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, 
With many a tale repays the nightly bed. 

Thus every good his native wilds impart, 
200 Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; 

And ev'en those hills that round his mansion rise 
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. 
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms : 
205 And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, 
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar 
But bind him to his native mountains more. 

Such are the charms to barren states assign 'd; 
210 Their wants but few, their wishes all confin'd. 

Yet let them only share the praises due ; 

If few their wants, their pleasures are but few; 

For every want that stimulates the breast 

Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest. 
215 Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies, 

That first excites desire, and then supplies; 

Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, 

To fill the languid pause with finer joy; 

Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame 
220 Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame, 

Their level life is but a smouldering fire, 

Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire; 

Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer 

On some high festival of once a year, 



108 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

225 In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, 
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire. 

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow; 

Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low. 

For, as refinement stops, from sire to son, 
230 Unalter 'd, unimprov 'd, the manners run ; 

And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart 

Fall blunted from each indurated heart. 

Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast 

May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest ; 
235 But all the gentler morals, such as play 

Through life's more cultur'd walks, and charm the 
way, — 

These, far dispers'd, on timorous pinions fly, 

To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. 

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, 
240 I turn ; and France displays her bright domain. 
Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleas 'd with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
How often have I led thy sportive choir, 
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire! 
245 Where shading elms along the margin grew, 
And freshen 'd from the wave the zephyr flew; 
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, 
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill, 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
250 And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. 
Alike all ages : dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze; 
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, 
Has frisk 'd beneath the burthen of three-score. 






THE TRAVELLER 109 

255 So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, 
Thus idly busy rolls their world away. 
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear, 
For honor forms the social temper here : 
Honor, that praise which real merit gains, 

260 Or even imaginary worth obtains, 

Here passes current; paid from hand to hand, 
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land; 
From courts, to camps, to cottages it strays, 
And all are taught an avarice of praise. 

265 They please, are pleas 'd ; they give to get esteem, 
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem. 

But while this softer art their bliss supplies, 
It gives their follies also room to rise ; 
For praise too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought, 

270 Enfeebles all internal strength of thought : 

And the weak soul, within itself unblest, 

Leans for all pleasure on another's breast. 

Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art, 

Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart; 

275 Here vanity assumes her pert grimace, 

And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace ; 
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer, 
To boast one splendid banquet once a year: 
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws, 

280 Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause. 

To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
Embosom 'd in the deep where Holland lies. 
Methinks her patient sons before me stand, 
Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 
285 And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, 



HO SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride. 
Onward methinks, and diligently slow, 
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow, 
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar, 

290 Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, 
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile; 
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom 'd vale, 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, 

295 The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, — 
A new creation rescued from his reign. 

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil 
Impels the native to repeated toil, 
Industrious habits in each bosom reign, 

300 And industry begets a love of gain. 

Hence all the good from opulence that springs, 
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings, 
Are here display 'd. Their much lov'd wealth imparts 
Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts; 

305 But, view them closer, craft and fraud appear ; 
Even liberty itself is barter 'd here. 
At gold's superior charms all freedom flies; 
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys. 
A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves, 

3io Here wretches seek dishonorable graves, 
And calmly bent, to servitude conform, 
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm. 






Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old — 
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold; 
315 War in each breast, and freedom on each brow ; 
How much unlike the sons of Britain now! 






THE TEAVELLEE HI 

Fir'd at the sound, my genius spreads her wing, 
And flies where Britain courts the western spring ; 
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, 

320 And brighter streams than fam'd Hydaspes glide. 
There all around the gentlest breezes stray, 
There gentle music melts on every spray; 
Creation's mildest charms are there combin'd: 
Extremes are only in the master 's mind ! 

325 Stern o 'er each bosom reason holds her state, 
With daring aims irregularly great; 
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, 
I see the lords of human kind pass by; 
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, 

330 By forms unf ashion 'd, fresh from Nature 's hand, 
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, 
True to imagin 'd right, above control ; 
While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan, 
And learns to venerate himself as man. 

335 Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur'd here, 
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear ; 
Too blest, indeed, were such without alloy; 
But, foster 'd even by freedom, ills annoy, 
That independence Britons prize too high 

340 Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie ; 
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone, 
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown. 
Here, by the bonds of nature feebly held, 
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd; 

345 Ferments arise, imprison 'd factions roar, 
Represt ambition struggles round her shore; 
Till, over-wrought, the general system feels 
Its motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels. 



112 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Nor this the worst. As nature 's ties decay, 
350 As duty, love, and honor fail to sway, 

Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law, 
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe. 
Hence all obedience bows to these alone, 
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown ; 
355 Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms, 
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms, 
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame, 
Where kings have toil 'd and poets wrote for fame, 
One sink of level avarice shall lie, 
360 And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonor'd die. 

Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state, 
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great: 
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire, 
Far from my bosom drive the low desire ; 

365 And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel 
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel; 
Thou transitory flower, alike undone 
By proud contempt, or favor's fostering sun, 
Skill may thy blooms the changeful clime endure ! 

370 I only would repress them to secure : 

For just experience tells, in every soil, 
That those who think must. govern those that toil; 
And all that Freedom's highest aims can reach, 
Is but to lay proportion 'd loads on each. 
375 Hence, should one order disproportion 'd grow, 
Its double weight must ruin all below. 

Oh, then how blind to all that truth requires, 
Who think it freedom when a part aspires! 






THE TRAVELLER 113 

Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms, 
380 Except when fast approaching danger warms : 
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne, 
Contracting regal power to stretch their own; 
When I behold a factious band agree 
To call it freedom when themselves are free ; 
385 Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, 
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law; 
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam, 
Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home; 
Fear, pity, justice, indignation, start, 
Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart; 
Till, half a patriot, half a coward grown, 
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne. 

Yes, Brother, curse with me that baleful hour, 
When first ambition struck at regal power, 

395 And thus polluting honor in its source, 

Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force. 
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore, 
Her useful sons exchang'd for useless ore? 
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste, 

400 Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste, 
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain, 
Lead stern depopulation in her train, 
And over fields where scatter 'd hamlets rose, 
In barren, solitary pomp repose? 

405 Have we not seen, at pleasure 's lordly call, 
The smiling, long frequented village fall? 
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay 'd, 
The modest matron, and the blushing maid, 
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train, 



114 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

410 To traverse climes beyond the western main ; 
"Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around, 
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound? 

Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays 
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways, 

415 Where beasts with man divided empire claim, 
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim; 
There, while above the giddy tempest flies, 
And all around distressful yells arise, 
The pensive exile, bending with his woe, 

420 To stop too fearful, and too faint to go, 

Casts a long look where England's glories shine, 
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine. 

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find 
That bliss which only centres in the mind: 

425 Why have I stray 'd from pleasure and repose, 
To seek a good each government bestows? 
In every government, though terrors reign, 
Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain, 
How small, of all that human hearts endure, 

430 That part which laws or kings can cause or cure ! 
Still to ourselves in every place consign 'd, 
Our own felicity we make or find: 
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, 
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. 

435 The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, 

Luke's iron crown, and Damiens' bed of steel, 
To men remote from power but rarely known, 
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own. 






THE DESEETED VILLAGE H5 

THE DESEETED VILLAGE. 

DEDICATION. 

TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 

Dear Sir, — I can have no expectations, in an address 
of this kind, either to add to your reputation, or to 
establish my own. You can gain nothing from my 
admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you 
are said to excel; and I may lose much by the severity 
of your judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry 
than you. Setting interest, therefore, aside, to which 
I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at 
present in following my affections. The only dedication 
I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him 
better than most other men. He is since dead. Permit 
me to inscribe this poem to you. 

How far you may be pleased with the versification 
and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I do not 
pretend to inquire; but I know you will object (and 
indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in 
the opinion), that the depopulation it deplores is no- 
where to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only 
to be found in the poet's own imagination. To this I 
can scarce make any other answer than that I sincerely 
believe what I have written; that I have taken all pos- 
sible pains, in my country excursions, for these four or 
five years past, to be certain of what I allege; and that 
all my views and inquiries have led me to believe those 
miseries real, which I here attempt to display. But this 
is not the place to enter into an inquiry, whether the 
country be depopulating or not ;the discussion would take 
up much room, and I should prove myself, at best, an in- 
different politician, to tire the reader with a long preface, 
when I want his unfatigued attention to a long poem. 

In regretting the depopulation of the country, I 
inveigh against the increase of our luxuries, and here 
also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. 
For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the fashion 



116 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advan- 
tages; and all the wisdom of antiquity, in that par- 
ticular, as erroneous. Still, however, I must remain a 
professed ancient on that head, and continue to think 
those luxuries prejudicial to states by which so many 
vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been 
undone. Indeed, so much has been poured out of late 
on the other side of the question, that, merely for the 
sake of novelty and variety, one would sometimes wish 
to be in the right. — I am, dear Sir, 

Your sincere Friend and ardent Admirer, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, 
Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain, 
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 
And parting summer's lingering blooms delay'd; 

5 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, 
How often have I loitered o'er thy green, 
Where humble happiness endear'd each scene ! 
How often have I paus'd on every charm, 

10 The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, 
The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 
The decent church that topt the neighboring hill, 
The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade, 
For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 

15 How often have I blest the coming day, 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labor free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree; 
While many a pastime circled in the shade, 

20 The young contending as the 'old survey'd; 
And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground, 



THE DESEBTED VILLAGE H7 

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round: 
And still, as each repeated pleasure tir'd, 
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired; 

25 The dancing pair that simply sought renown, 
By holding out, to tire each other down; 
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face, 
While secret laughter titter'd round the place; 
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, 

30 The matron's glance that would those looks reprove : 
These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these, 
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please; 
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed, 
These were thy charms, — but all these charms are fled. 

35 Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn ! 
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ; 
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, 
And desolation saddens all thy green: 
One only master grasps the whole domain, 

40 And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. 
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 
But chok'd with sedges works its weedy way; 
Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; 

45 Amidst thy desert-walks the lapwing flies, 
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. 
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, 
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall; 
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand 

50 Far, far away thy children leave the land. 

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; 



113 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade: 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made, 
55 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied. 

A time there was, ere England's griefs began, 
When every rood of ground maintain'd its man; 
For him light labor spread her wholesome store, 
60 Just gave what life requir'd, but gave no more ; 
His best companions, innocence and health; 
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 

But times are alter'd; trade's unfeeling train 
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain; 

65 Along the lawn, where scatter'd hamlets rose, 
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose; 
And every want to opulence allied, 
And every pang that folly pays to pride. 
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, 

70 Those calm desires that ask'd but little room, 
Those healthful sports that grac'd the peaceful scene, 
Liv'd in each look, and brighten'd all the green: 
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore, 
And rural mirth and manners are no more. 

75 Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour, 
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power. 
Here, as I take my solitary rounds 
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruin'd grounds, 
And, many a year elaps'd, return to view 

80 Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 
Eemembrance wakes, with all her busy train, 
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 



THE DESEKTED VILLAGE H9 

Tn all my wanderings round this world of care, 
. In all my griefs — and God has given my share — 
S5 I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 

Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; 

To husband out life's taper at the close, 

And keep the flame from wasting by repose; 

I still had hopes — for pride attends us still — 
90 Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill, 

Around my fire an evening group to draw, 

And tell of all I felt, and all I saw; 

And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue 

Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, 
95 I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 

Here to return, — and die at home at last. 

blest retirement! friend to life's decline, 
Retreat from care, that never must be mine, 
How blest is he who crowns in shades like these 

loo A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 

Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; 

105 No surly porter stands in guilty state, 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate: 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend; 
Bends to the grave with unperceiv'd decay, 

110 While resignation gently slopes the way; 
And, all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past. 

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close 



120 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. 

lis There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, 
The mingling notes came sqften'd from below; 
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, 
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young; 
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool; 

120 The playful children just let loose from school ; 
The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, 
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind: 
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, 
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made. 

125 But now the sounds of population fail, 
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, 
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, 
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled. 
All but yon widow' d, solitary thing 

130 That feebly bends beside the plashy spring ; 
She, wretched matron, — forc'd in age, for bread, 
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, 
To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn, 
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn — 

135 She only left of all the harmless train, 
The sad historian of the pensive plain. 

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild, 
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
140 The village preacher's modest mansion rose. 
A man he was to all the country dear, 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 
Eemote from towns he ran his godly race, 
Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change, his place ; 






THE DESERTED VILLAGE 121 

145 Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power, 
By doctrines fashion' d to the varying hour; 
Far other aims his heart had learn' d to prize, 
More skill'd to raise the wretched than to rise. 
His house was known to all the vagrant train, 

150 He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their pain ; 
The long-remember' d beggar was his guest, 
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast; 
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allow'd; 

155 The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
Sate by his fire, and talk'd the night away; 
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 
Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won. 
Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow, 

160 And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 
Careless their merits or their faults to scan. 
His pity gave ere charity began. 

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side : 

165 But in his duty prompt at every call, 

He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all. 
And as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, 

170 Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way. 

Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd, 
The reverend champion stood. At his control, 
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; 



122 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

J 

175 Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
And his last faltering accents whispered praise. 

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 

His looks adorned the venerable place; 

Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
180 And fools, who came to scoff, remain' d to pray. 

The service past, around the pious man, 

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; 

Even children follow' d, with endearing wile, 

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile, 
185 His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, 

Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distrest; 

To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given, 

But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven: 

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
190 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 

Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 

Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way 
With blossom'd furze unprontably gay, 

195 There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, 
The village master taught his little school. 
A man severe he was, and stern to view; 
I knew him well, and every truant knew: 
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace 

200 The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
Full well they laugh'd, with counterfeited glee 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he : 
Full well the busy whisper, circling round, 
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd. 

205 Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 



THE DESEBTED VILLAGE 123 

The love lie bore to learning was in fault. 

The village all declared how much he knew; 

7 Twas certain he could write, and cipher, too ; 

Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
210 And even the story ran that he could gauge ; 

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, 

For even though vanquished he could argue still; 

While words of learned length and thundering sound 

Amaz'd the gazing rustics ranged around; 
215 And still they gaz^d, and still the wonder grew 

That one small head could carry all he knew. 

But past is all his fame. The very spot, 
Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot. 
Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, 

220 Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, 

Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, 
Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired, 
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, 
And news much older than their ale went round. 

225 Imagination fondly stoops to trace 

The parlor splendors of that festive place : 
The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor, 
The varnish'd clock that clicked behind the door; 
The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, 

230 A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; 
The pictures placed for ornament and use, 
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose; 
The hearth, except when winter chill' d the day, 
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay, 

235 While broken teacups, wisely kept for show, 
Eang'd o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row. 



124 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Vain, transitory splendors ! could not all 

Eeprieve the tottering mansion from its fall? 

Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart 
240 An hour's importance to the poor man's heart. 

Thither no more the peasant shall repair 

To sweet oblivion of his daily care ; 

No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, 

No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; 
245 No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, 

Eelax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear; 

The host himself no longer shall be found 

Careful to see the mantling bliss go round; 

Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest, 
250 Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. 

Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, 
These simple blessings of the lowly train; 
To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 
One native charm, than all the gloss of art. 

255 Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, 
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway; 
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, 
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfin'd. 
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, 

260 With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd, — 
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, 
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain; 
And even while fashion's brightest arts decoy, 
The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy. 

265 Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey 
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 
'T is yours to judge how wide the limits stand 



THE DESEBTED VILLAGE 125 

Between a splendid and a happy land. 

Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, 

270 And shouting Folly hails them from her shore ; 
Hoards e'en beyond the miser's wish abound, 
And rich men flock from all the world around. 
Yet count our gains : this wealth is but a name, 
That leaves our useful products still the same. 

275 Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 
Takes up a space that many poor supplied; 
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds: 
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth 

280 Has robb'd the neighboring fields of half their growth; 
His seat, where solitary sports are seen, 
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green; 
Around the world each needful product flies, 
For all the luxuries the world supplies. 

285 While thus the land, adorn'd for pleasure, all 
In barren splendor feebly waits the fall. 

As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain, 
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, 
Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies, 

290 Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes ; 

But when those charms are past, for charms are frail, 
When time advances, and when lovers fail, 
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, 
In all the glaring impotence of dress: 

295 Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd, 
In nature's simplest charms at first array'd; 
But, verging to decline, its splendors rise, 
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise; 



126 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

While, scourged by famine from the smiling land, 
300 The mournful peasant leads his humble band ; 
And while he sinks, without one arm to save, 
The country blooms — a garden and a grave. 

Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside, 

To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride? 
305 If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd, 

He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, 

Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, 

And even the bare-worn common is denied. 

If to the city sped, what waits him there? 
310 To see profusion that he must not share ; 

To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd, 

To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; 

To see those joys the sons of pleasure know 

Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. 
315 Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, 

There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; 

Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, 

There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. 

The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign, 
320 Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train ; 

Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, 

The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. 

Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy ! 

Sure these denote one universal joy! 
325 Are these thy serious thoughts ? Ah ! turn thine eyes 

Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. 

She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, 

Has wept at tales of innocence distrest; 

Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 127 

330 Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; 
Now lost to all — her friends, her virtue tied — 
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, 
And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower, 
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, 

385 When idly first, ambitious of the town, 

She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. 

Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train, 
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain? 
Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, 
340 At proud men's doors they ask a little bread. 

Ah, no ! To distant climes, a dreary scene, 
Where half the convex world intrudes between, 
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, 
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. 

345 Far different there from all that charm'd before, 
The various terrors of that horrid shore: 
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, 
And fiercely shed intolerable day; 
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, 

350 But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling ; 

Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown' d, 
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around; 
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake 
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake ; 

355 Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey 
And savage men more murderous still than they ; 
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, 
Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies. 
Far different these from every former scene, 

560 The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, . 



128 SHOKTER ENGLISH POEMS 

The breezy covert of the warbling grove, 
That only sheltered thefts of harmless love. 

Good Heaven ! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day 
That call'd them from their native walks away; 

365 When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, 

Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last, 
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain 
For seats like these beyond the western main; 
And, shuddering still to face the distant deep, 

370 Keturn'd and wept, and still returned to weep ! 
The good old sire the first prepared to go 
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe; 
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, 
He only wished for worlds beyond the grave. 

375 His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, 
The fond companion of his helpless years, 
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, 
And left a lover's for a father's arms. 
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, 

380 And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose ; 
And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear 
And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear; 
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief 
In all the silent manliness of grief. 

385 Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree, 
How ill exchang'd are things like these for thee! 
How do thy potions, with insidious joy, 
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy! 
Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, 



THE DESEBTED VILLAGE 129 

390 Boast of a florid vigor not their own. 

At every draught more large and large they grow, 
A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe; 
Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound, 
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. 

395 Even now the devastation is begun, 
And half the business of destruction done; 
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, 
I see the rural "Virtues leave the land. 
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail 

400 That, idly waiting, flaps with every gale, 
Downward they move, a melancholy band, 
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. 
Contented Toil, and hospitable Care, 
And kind connubial Tenderness, are there; 

405 And Piety with wishes placed above, 
And steady Loyalty, and faithful Love. 
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, 
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade; 
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame, 

410 To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame ; 
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, 
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride; 
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, 
That f ound'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so ; 

415 Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel, 
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well! 
Farewell ! and oh ! where'er thy voice be tried, 
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side, 
Whether where equinoctial fervors glow, 

420 Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, 



130 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, 
Redress the rigors of the inclement clime ; 
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain, 
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain ; 

425 Teach him that states of native strength possest, 
Though very poor, may still be very blest; 
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, 
As ocean sweeps the labor 'd mole away ; 
While self-dependent power can time defy, 

430 As rocks resist the billows and the sky. 

THE TEAVELLEE. 

NOTES. 

TITLE. 

Dr. Johnson was disposed to prefer The Traveller to The Deserted 
Village. "Take him as a poet," he said of Goldsmith, "his Traveller 
is a very fine performance. Ay, and so is his Deserted Village, were 
it not sometimes too much the echo of his Traveller." The poem 
was begun in Switzerland in 1755, but not finished till 1764. 
European travel was less common then than now, and Goldsmith's 
record of the reflections inspired by his wanderings had freshness 
for him and for his readers. 

DEDICATION. 

Dear Sir: The eighteenth century formality appears quaintly in 
this address to Goldsmith's brother. Even in public no one today 
would accost his brother as "Dear Sir." But it was characteristic 
of Goldsmith at his best to dedicate this poem to his brother, a 
poor Irish parson, at a time when it was the habit to dedicate verse 
to distinguished and wealthy patrons. 

What criticism have we not heard of late: Goldsmith is alluding 
to the movement in favor of freer versification and more lyrical 
measures, represented by the poetry of Gray and Collins. In points 
of form he threw himself on the side of the conventions of his 
day. A little later he alludes to the influence of politics on literary 
reputation. Churchill, at whom these bitter remarks were aimed, 
died before The Traveller was published. 

Line 1 : "The story is told by Boswell that at a meeting of the 
Literary Club just after the publication of the poem somebody asked 
Goldsmith what he meant by the word 'slow' ; did he mean tardi- 
ness of locomotion? 'Yes,' replied Goldsmith, but Johnson caught 



THE TEAVELLEE: NOTES 131 

him up, saying : 'No, sir, you did not mean tardiness of locomo- 
tion ; you meant that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a 
man in solitude.' 'Ah, that was what I meant,' Goldsmith rejoined, 
accepting the more subtle interpretation." 

2. Or . . . or: A Latin form. 

3. The rude Carinthian boor: Carinthia is a mountainous duchy 
of Austria-Hungary, east of the Tyrol. Meredith's heroine in The 
Amazing Marriage is named for it. 

5. Campania's Plain: Campania was the ancient name of a 
famous province in southern Italy. 

10. In his Citizen of the World, Goldsmith repeats this senti- 
ment in prose : "The farther I travel I feel the pain of separation 
with stronger force. Those ties that bind me to my native country 
and you are still unbroken ; by every remove I only drag a greater 
length of chain." 

26. Some fleeting good: This image of an endless journey in 
pursuit of the unattained ideal has always haunted the poets. It 
is curious to compare with this restrained passage a poem like 
Shelley's Alastor, which develops the same theme at the most in- 
tense moment of the romantic revival. 

31. Where Alpine solitudes ascend: Is not this the first poetic 
treatment of Switzerland? Many were to follow, among which 
Coleridge's Hymn Before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni, and 
Byron's Manfred at once occur to mind. There is little distinctive 
in Goldsmith's treatment of the landscape, nor can we discover 
just where he is, except that from his vantage point he looks 
down over Italy. 

41. School-taught pride: Intellectual pride, resulting from the 
teaching in schools of philosophy. 

48. Dress the flowery vale: Our first parents were told to dress 
and keep the earth. Genesis II, 15. 

60. Compare the search of the characters in Johnson's Rasselas 
for the happiest spot on earth. This is rather a favorite idea of 
the 18th century. In the 17th century Bunyan's Christian, quite 
unconcerned with happiness, starts out to find salvation. 

69. The line is of course the equator. Cf. Ancient Mariner, 
gloss on part VI. 

75. If countries ice compare: Studies in racial psychology such 
as Goldsmith now leads up to are always as fascinating as they are 
elusive. But after the 18th century they are more often found in 
prose than in verse. The natural works with which to compare 
The Traveller are such books as Arnold Bennett's Your United 
States, Price Collier's England and the English, Emerson's English 
Traits, etc. 

84. On Idra's cliffs: Idra, a Welsh mountain. 

98. Peculiar pain: Not a curious pain but a special pain. 

103. The personal touch in the simile at once quickens feeling. 
Most of the poem is so impersonal that it seems cold. 



132 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

105. Very generalized description of Italian landscape. The 
day of the concrete in description has not dawned, and these lines 
might have been written by some one who had never seen Italy. 

120. The fertility of Italy, on the contrary, is due to infinite 
labor and patience in the culture of the soil. Goldsmith writes from 
a provincial English point of view, sweepingly and inaccurately. 

124. Sensual corresponds to sense in the preceding line : phys- 
ical. Goldsmith's analysis of Italian character seems strangely 
unfair to the land of Dante and Michael Angelo. Though Italy, 
when he wrote, was at a low point of her spiritual and temporal 
fortunes, his tone toward her is in strange contrast to the tone of 
19th century poets, — Byron, Swinburne, and the Brownings. 

133. For wealth was theirs: The following lines allude to the 
Italy of the Renaissance. 

136. The allusion is to the habit of the Renaissance of pillaging 
the ancient ruins which abound on Italian soil, for new building 
material. 

166. Where rougher climes: Goldsmith gives no indication of 
the glory of Swiss landscape. He is wholly occupied, as is his cus- 
tom, with the qualities of the inhabitants. Cf. Ruskin's study of 
the reaction of mountain scenery on character, in the chapters on 
"The • Mountain Gloom" and "The Mountain Glory," Modem 
Painters, Vol. III. 

190. The struggling savage: Beast is understood. 

210 seq. Goldsmith attempts a balanced judgment. His study 
of the rude mountaineers who miss life's finer pleasures contrasts 
with his picture of the enervated Italians, spoiled by self-indul- 
gence. Many people who know the Swiss peasant feel in him no 
lack of the "gentler morals." 

240. France displays her oright domain: The treatment of 
France is far more sympathetic than that accorded to Italy or 
Switzerland. The lines are full of charming personal reminiscence, and 
the judgment is acute. The 18th century had more native affinity 
for the French genius than for that of any other country. The turn 
of Italy in exercising fascination was to come in the next century. 

253. Gestic: "Relating to bodily gestures, referring particularly 
to dancing." The dancing instincts of the French found happy ex- 
pression in the early and idyllic phases of the French Revolution, 
when Wordsworth saw the peasants in many a hamlet, dancing 
around the liberty tree, as he tells us in Book VI of the Prelude. 

258. Honor forms the social temper here: An especially felic- 
itous line to describe the French disposition. 

284. A fine descriptive line. Much of Holland is protected by 
embankment against the sea. 

306. "Referring possibly to the custom which permitted parents 
to sell their children's labor for a term of years." 

309. "In The Citizen of the World exactly the same words 
recur. 'A nation once famous for setting the world an example 



THE TEAVELLEE: NOTES 133 

of freedom is now become a land of tyrants and a den of slaves.' " 
Goldsmith was as unfair in his comments on the Dutch as he was 
in his comments on the Italians. 

313. Their Belgic sires: "Horum omnium fortissimae sunt Bel- 
gae," said Caesar, a judgment not disproved by late events. 

318 seq. See a similar passage in The Citizen of the World. 
Coming to his own land, Goldsmith seeks to view its faults and 
virtues with disinterested eyes, and in proportion as he knew Eng- 
lishmen better than Italians or Swiss or Dutch, his judgment is 
more pertinent. 

319. Arcadian pride: Arcadia was famous for its lawns. 

320. Hydaspes: A large river, tributary to the Indus; known 
to the Greeks through Alexander's Indian campaign. 

327. Pride in their port: A famous passage. Here is a resident 
of England and a native of the British Isles acknowledging the 
national arrogance that so irritates other people. 

330. By forms unfashion'd: He is thinking of the love of the 
Latin races for formal institutions, compared with the individual- 
ism and independence of the English. 

340. Severe but keen judgment. Cf. Carlyle on England, years 
later. 

345-360. "It is extremely difficult to induce a number of free 
beings to co-operate for their mutual benefits : every possible ad- 
vantage will necessarily be sought, and every attempt to procure it 
must be attended with a new fermentation." Citizen of the World. 

We may remember that within a century England had become, 
as Karl Marx pointed out, the classic land of laissez faire in 
industry and politics. Goldsmith indicates eloquently the rising 
dangers of commercialism and the mercenary spirit ; but after all, 
his dark prophecy has never been fulfilled. 

357. Noole stems: Latin stemmae, families, houses. 

365. Fair Freedom: Freedom is already loved in England, though 
not as the Revolution was to love her, or as we love her now that 
democracy is in the air. 

371-376. The theory sounds well, but what if the day should 
ever arrive when those who toil should also be those who think? 

386. A succinct line. The sincerity of Goldsmith, and the im- 
portance of the idea to him are evident from the fact that this ; 
phrase is repeated in the Vicar of Wakefield, ch. 19. Here, as ins 
The Deserted Village, the passion for social justice inspires his" 
choicest eloquence. He is first and foremost a social critic, doing 
the same sort of work for his generation that Matthew Arnold did 
for our fathers. 

396. Cave wealth to stvay the mind: Gave the power to wealth. 
Goldsmith seems to lament, as Carlyle did, the good old days of 
absolute monarchy. 

402. Here is the theme of his future poem, The Deserted Village. 

412. And Niagara stuns: A fine pronunciation which we have 



134 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

unfortunately spoiled. How surprised Goldsmith would have been 
to know that boys and girls would busily study his poem in these 
very regions. 

420. Dr. Johnson wrote this line. 

423. Goldsmith reverts to his theme, the search for happiness, 
lie turns to the sage conclusion that geographical or political con- 
ditions have little to do with felicity, and lines 431, 432 are the 
wisest in the poem. Dr. Johnson, however, was the author of 
them. He wrote the last ten lines, excepting lines 433, 436. 

436. Luke's iron croivn: Two brothers, George and Luke Dosa, led 
a revolt against the Hungarian nobility early in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, but it was George who was tortured by a crown of red hot iron. 

Damiens' bed of steel: "Robert Frangois Damiens was put to 
death with revolting barbarity, in the year 1757, for an attempt 
to assassinate Louis XW 

THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 
NOTES. 

The Dedication: Sir Joshua, the great painter to whom the poem 
is dedicated in these graceful and touching words, was so pleased 
with the compliment that he painted a picture called "Resignation, " 
representing an aged beggar, which was to be engraved and to 
carry the inscription : "This attempt to express a character in 
The Deserted Village is dedicated to Dr. Goldsmith by his sincere 
friend and admirer, Joshua Reynolds." 

Goldsmith was wrong in his opinion that England was "depopu- 
lating," but not wrong in his general view of the land question. 
When he inveighed "against the increase of our luxuries" he may 
have been a "professed ancient" to his own time, but he was also 
a prophet of the future. Many of the greatest nineteenth century 
thinkers, Carlyle and Ruskin especially, were to make his cry the 
burden of their teaching. Today, even "modern politicians" and 
economists shout no longer against him but for him : and only the 
rash and ignorant person dares to claim that the production of 
luxuries can in the long run relieve economic distress. 

12. Decent: Akin to Latin "decus," honor, and used in its 
frequent eighteenth century sense of becoming, comely, fit. Com- 
pare Wordsworth's Prelude, Book IV, 21 : 

I saw the snow-white church upon her hill 
Sit like a throned Lady, sending out 
A gracious look all over her domain. 

24, etc. This description, although in the slightly formal manner 
of the times, presents real memories of a real village. It is quite 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE: NOTES 135 

different in tone from the pastoral poetry of the sixteenth ana 
seventeenth centuries, which was usually written by men who knew 
little of country life at first hand, but who invented a pretty 
dream-land where the manners and customs were derived rather 
from Sicily than from England, and where the fruits of civilization 
might be enjoyed without its pains. On the other hand, Gold- 
smith does not present his village nearly as vividly as Crabbe or 
Burns or Wordsworth would have done. His poem is transitional 
between the conventionality of the older pastoral and modern 
realism. 

39. One only master: In 1910, one-tenth of the inhabitants of 
England owned nine-tenths of the land: Whole villages often belong 
to the great landed estates as part of their property. See for an 
admirable description of such a village, the opening chapters of 
Trollope's novel, Dr. Thome: and for a picture of the constant 
ill-feeling between the tillers of the soil and the landed gentry. 
Charles Kingsley's Yeast. 

40. Half a tillage: The land is kept for shooting, not for agri- 
culture. 

44. The hollow-sounding bittern: A bittern is a kind of heron, 
a marsh-bird. 

51. Ill fares the land, etc.: Goldsmith is deeply in earnest in 
the following passage. Note the strong progressive word, "hasten- 
ing." And compare the long adaress of the Vicar in the nineteenth 
chapter of The Vicar of Wakefield, especially the passage begin- 
ning : "An accumulation of wealth, however, must necessarily be 
the consequence when, as at present, more riches flow in from 
external commerce than from internal industry," and ending : 
"Those, however, who are willing to move in a great man's vortex 
are only such as must be slaves, the rabble of mankind." 

"There is no wealth but life," said John Ruskin in a memorable 
epigram. And he accordingly defined the aim of political economy 
to be "The multiplication of human life at the highest standard." 

58. Maintained its man: Peasant-proprietorship is still urged 
by many thoughtful people as the solution of the land-question. 
Others prefer communal or state ownership, with carefully guarded 
methods of tenure. 

But what is the time of which Goldsmith is thinking when he says, 
"Ere England's griefs be^an"? Not the middle ages, with their 
system of villeinage. Not the fifteenth century, with the miseries of 
which one may read in the first book of Sir Thomas More's 
Utopia. Hardly the sixteenth century, or the seventeenth. One 
fears that it was the Saturnian Age ever dear to poetic dream. 

63. Trade's unfeeling train: Note the instinctive delight of the 
poet in agriculture and his distaste for commerce. It is worth 
noting that many of the great landholders in England today made 
their money in trade. 

67. And every tvant to opulence allied: What are some of the 



136 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

wants "to opulence allied" as compared with those allied to pov- 
erty? 

■80. This entire line is the object of "view." 

S3. This, the most touching section of the poem, is written in 
-singularly pure and simple English. 

103. For Mm no wretches, etc.: The following passage evinces 
Goldsmith's sensitiveness in a surprising way. The recoil from 
profiting by the painful labor of others is one of the best products 
of modern democracy. But here it is, in the full tide of the eighteenth 
century, felt as keenly as Ruskin could have felt it. Another 
eighteenth century worthy, the saintly American Quaker, John 
Wooiman, suffered agonies from this same cause. 

114. The village murmur: Charmingly analyzed in the following 
lines. Only we should hardly today take a pensive pleasure in 
hearing, even blended with other sounds, "the loud laugh that spoke 
the vacant mind." 

Carlyle, looking down at a village from a hill-top, takes especial 
satisfaction in watching the colored smoke that spouts from cot- 
tage chimneys and suggests dinners a-cooking (Sartor Resartus). 
Is anything too homely to be proper material for poetry? Gab- 
bling geese, mooing cows, screaming children, barking dogs, none 
of them produce music. What is the secret of their charm to the 
imagination in this passage? 

129. Yon tvidow'd solitary tiling: This single figure on whom 
our eyes are now fixed anticipates the type of subject dear to 
Wordsworth in poetry and to Millet in painting. This special old 
woman has been identified by curious critics as one Catherine 
Gerarty : but really, Goldsmith need not have had any individual 
in mind. 

142. Passing rich with forty pounds a year: "Passing" is used in 
the sense often found in Shakespeare: the expression "passing 
strange" still seems hardly obsolete. 

In Goldsmith's dedication of The Traveller to his brother Henry, 
a clergyman in Ireland, we read that the poem "is addressed to a 
man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happi- 
ness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year. I 
now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice." 

This whole description is most deservedly a familiar quotation. 

160, 161. Would these two lines appear admirable, do you think, 
to our modern Associated Charities? 

194. With blossom'd furze: One of the lines that shows Gold- 
smith the poet. 

196. The village master: Identified with Thomas Byrne, famil- 
iarly known as "Paddy Byrne," an old soldier who taught school 
in Lissoy when the poet was a little boy. 

209. Terms are the terms of law-courts and universities. Tides 
are not tides on the sea, but seasons like Christmastide, Eastertide. 



THE DESEKTED VILLAGE: NOTES 137 

210. Gauge: "A ganger is in some places a sworn officer, whose 
duty it is to measure the contents of hogsheads, barrels, or casks." 

220. Compare the talk at the Inn with similar scenes presented 
by Dickens and George Eliot. Old-fashioned English inns have 
furnished much delightful material to literature. 

225, etc. The following description of an author's bed-chamber 
was sent by Goldsmith to his brother some time earlier than the 
date of The Deserted Village. It is doubtless a picture of his own 
way of living in the days of his poverty. A comparison with the 
passage in the text will show the careful and minute art which 
has gone to shaping a poem so seemingly spontaneous, so easy and 
simple in movement, as The Deserted Village. Writers in the 
eighteenth century spared no pains with their lines, and the best 
of them well knew that ease and plainness in the style were no 
result of an easy-going way of writing but of deliberate effort. 

Where the Red Lion, staring o'er the way, 

Invites each passing stranger that can pay ; 

Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne, 

Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane ; 

There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 

The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug. 

A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray, 

That dimly show'd the state in which he lay ; 

The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread ; 

The humid wall with paltry pictures spread ; 

The royal game of goose was there in view, 

And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew ; 

The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place, 

A»nd brave prince William show'd his lampblack faoe. 

The morn was cold ; he views with keen desire 

The rusty grate unconscious of a fire : 

With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd, 

And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board ; 

A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, 

A cap by night, — a stocking all the day ! 



232. The twelve good rules: Portraits of King Charles, by a 
queer twist of favor become a popular hero, in those days adorned 
inns and lodgings much as portraits of Lord Byron did within liv- 
ing memory. Beneath the portrait would be engraved the Twelve 
Rules assigned to the Royal Martyr. They ran : 1. Urge no 
healths. 2. Profane no divine ordinances. 3. Touch no state 
matters. 4. Reveal no secrets. 5. Pick no quarrels. 6. Make 
no companions. 7. Maintain no ill opinions. 8. Keep no bad 
company. 9. Encourage no vice. 10. Make no long meal. 11. Re- 



138 SHOBTER ENGLISH POEMS 

peat no grievances. 12. Lay no wagers. The royal game of goose 
was a species of checkers. 

Goldsmith, for once, is less afraid of the concrete than Words- 
worth. See The Prelude, Book I, 509, for a description of the Royal 
Game of Goose. 

244. The woodman's ballad: The woodman is the man used to 
the woods, the hunter. Perhaps he sang a ballad of Robin Hood 
and the good greenshawe. 

262. The toiling pleasure sickens into pain: Again a line that 
summarizes a whole train of thought and experience. 

265-286. Carlyle, a little over half a century later, was to say 
much the same thing with even more force. What in Goldsmith 
is admirable general statement becomes in Carlyle direct analysis : 

"The condition of England ... is justly regarded as one of 
the most ominous and withal one of the strangest ever seen in 
this world. England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, 
supply for human want in every kind ; yet England is dying of 
inanition. With unabated bounty the land of England blooms and 
grows ; waving with yellow harvests ; thick-studded with workshops, 
industrial implements, with fifteen millions of workers : The work 
they have done is here, abundant, exuberant, on every hand of us ; 
and behold, some baleful fiat as of Enchantment has gone forth, 
saying, Touch it not, ye workers ; none of you can touch it, no 
man of you shall be the better for it ; this is enchanted fruit." 
Past and Present. 

287. Female: Now a vulgarism, but in good use at that time. 

295. Other great invectives against luxury may be found in 
the writings of Ruskin, Tolstoy, and William Morris. It is note- 
worthy that poets and artists are especially prominent among the 
enemies of extravagance and waste. Can you cite any instances 
in history of the process described by Goldsmith? 

308. Even the bare-worn common: This line illustrates the 
change then going on in agricultural holdings. 

316. Artist: Artizan. 

318. The black gibbet: This is no fancy picture. In Goldsmith's 
time many trifling offences were punishable by death, and the 
gallows, with a corpse hanging from it. was still a familiar object 
on country cross-roads. Goldsmith makes clear that it was to be 
met in the city also. 

341. Shortly before this time, the philanthropist Oglethorpe, 
the founder of the State of Georgia, had welcomed a number of 
poor debtors to the colony of Georgia. This fact has worked on 
Goldsmith's imagination. But the description given here does not 
at all resemble Georgia, although the Altama is a Georgian river. 

363-384. Although there is a good deal of poetic convention- 
ality in the account of the departure of the exiles, and although 
many lines have rather a prim eighteenth century quality, the 
general feeling in this passage is sweet and sound. Similar scenes 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE: NOTES 139 

may be witnessed any day now in Italy. De Amicis, the Italian 
writer, in a book called On the Ocean, has an excellent and moving 
account of the departure of poor emigrants from their native land 
and of the terrors and joys of a sea-voyage to their new homes. 

395, etc. This vision of "the rural virtues" leaving the land 
as the poor emigrants had done, presents in imaginative form the 
national catastrophe which Goldsmith has had in view throughout. 
We love best to linger on the portraits of the Parson and the 
Schoolmaster and the graceful descriptions of the happy village. 
But the poet wrote with serious purpose, using the fate of his 
village to illustrate what he conceived to be a great and threat- 
ening evil. This concluding section combines his intellectual con- 
viction with his poetic instinct and is a fitting termination to 
both strains in the poem. 

410, etc. Goldsmith only mentions the other departing Virtues : 
but he gives ten charming lines to Poetry. He was more intimate 
perhaps with her than with the others. Do you approve of 
having Poetry put among the rural virtues? Does she really flee 
the land given over to luxury? 

418. Torno is a river dividing Sweden from Russia and falling 
into the Gulf of Bothnia. Pambamarca is a mountain near Quito. 
Goldsmith wanted a Northern and a Southern name. 

423. Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain: Goldsmith's 
idea of the function of poetry may seem didactic. But it was shared 
by Shelley, who wrote in A Defense of Poetry, "The great instru- 
ment of moral good is the imagination ; and poetry administers to 
the effect by acting upon the cause." 

427. That trade's proud empire, etc.: Dr. Johnson told Boswell 
that he had written the last four lines of The Deserted Village. 
Y'e might not have suspected this from internal evidence, but the 
stately lines are characteristic of Johnson. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



141 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 1772-1834. 



The output of Coleridge by which he lives as a poet 
is probably less than that of any other English poet 
of the first order except Gray. But there is this dif- 
ference; one can ascribe the comparative sterility of 
Gray's genius to the "spiritual East Wind" which 
during his life-time blighted all free imaginative 
growth; while Coleridge lived at the height of the 
Romantic Revival, at a time when the sweetest and 
most life-giving winds of heaven were blowing on the 
dead bones of English poetry. The age of Pope was 
behind him, with its artificial cleverness; so was the 
age of Goldsmith and Gray, with its pathetic stir of 
feeling and fancy half -stifled, by the surrounding at- 
mosphere. Coleridge himself had a large share in 
experiencing and extending the new life of his age; 
and we must find explanation for the paucity of his 
product, not in any lack of poetic power or sensitive- 
ness, nor in any surrounding circumstance, but solely 
in moral and personal weakness. That weakness we 
dare not ignore, yet, reading the exquisite poetry 
which he gave us at his best, gratitude must be our 
chief instinct toward him; nor may we forget that 
in addition to poems which most completely convey 
the spell of beauty and wonder in which the romantic 
temper delights, Coleridge through his prose writings 
143 



144 SHORTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

and his conversation influenced the religious and phil- 
osophical thought of England in a way that is still 
vital. 

The father of the future philosopher-poet, a country 
clergyman, died when the little boy was nine years 
old. Coleridge was then sent to the famous Charter- 
house School at Christ's Hospital, London, of which 
Thackeray was to write in The Newcomes; there he 
remained eight years. We have a memorable picture 
of the "Blue-coat Boy," written by his schoolmate 
and life-long friend, the charming essayist, Charles 
Lamb: 

Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day- 
spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before 
thee, — the dark pillar not yet turned, — Samuel Taylor Cole- 
ridge, — logician, metaphysician, bard! How have I seen the 
casual passer through the cloisters stand still, entranced with 
admiration, (while he weighed the disproportion between the 
speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee un- 
fold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of 
Iamblicus or Plotinus), (for even in those years thou waxedst 
not pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in 
his Greek or Pindar, — while the walls of the old Grey-Friars 
re-echoed to the accents of the Inspired Charity Boy! 

Through the emotional and almost lyrical wording 
of this well-known passage, we certainly gain the im- 
pression that Coleridge was an extraordinary boy. 
Such an impression he made on every one who met 
him, and he was fortunate in friends, more than one 
of whom was himself a man of genius. William 
Wordsworth has a beautiful passage about Coleridge 
in his youth, which confirms the image given by Lamb : 



SAMUEL TAYLOE COLERIDGE 145 

I have thought 
Of thee, thy learning, gorgeous eloquence, 
And all the strength and plumage of thy youth, 
Thy subtle speculations, toils abstruse 
Among the schoolmen, and Platonic forms 
Of wild ideal pageantry. . . . 
The self -created sustenance of -a mind 
Debarred from Nature's living images, 
Compelled to be a life unto herself, 
And unrelentingly possessed by thirst 
Of greatness, love, and beauty. 

The "metaphysician" is more prominent than the 
"bard" in these passages; and Wordsworth interests 
us in his characteristic suggestion that city life was 
responsible for the speculative and introspective habit 
of mind which was to help inhibit the free play of 
imagination in his friend. Yet after all, Coleridge 
spent only seven or eight years in the city. In 1791, 
he left the Blue-coat School for the University of 
Cambridge, entering soon after Wordsworth had left 
his Alma Mater. For some unexplained reason, he 
ran away from the University to become a soldier, 
but soon returned, and remained till 1794, when he 
left without taking a degree. Thus he was a uni- 
versity student during the years when the French 
Revolution, which affected all the poets of the day 
profoundly, was running the most dramatic portion 
of its course. For a time, Coleridge embraced the 
radical revolutionary ideas; and soon after leaving 
college, he and the young poet Southey, whose ac- 
quaintance he had made in 1793, formed a wonderful 
scheme for retiring to the banks of the Susquehanna, 
and there establishing an ideal commonwealth which 



146 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 



S the 
Iflhnr 



they called Pantisocracy. In this community, as 
name implies, all were to be social equals, and labor 
and literature were to divide the time of the fortunate 
colonists. The Pantisocracy, strange to say, was never 
founded, but Coleridge retained for some years vio- 
lent Jacobin opinions, which gradually yielded to 
more conservative and mystical views. Meantime, he 
and Southey had married sisters, and Coleridge had 
begun his earnest but rather unpractical and futile 
efforts to make his way in the world. He edited for 
a few months a review, called The Watchman, he de- 
livered lectures, he preached as a Unitarian minister, 
his voice rising, as one hearer says, "like a steam of 
rich distilled perfumes." His sincerity and genius 
impressed every one, devoted friends did all they 
could to smooth his way, and for a time the prospects 
seemed bright. 

It was in 1795 that the best fortune of his life befell 
him ; for in that year he formed an ardent friendship 
with Wordsworth, and with Wordsworth's rare sister, 
Dorothy. To this delightful relation, we owe much 
that is best and most inspired in Coleridge's poetic 
work, as he owed to it the chief happiness of his life. 
Together the two poets, full of the high spirits and 
visionary raptures of youth, planned and wrote the 
volume of Lyrical Ballads, which appeared in 1798 
and which has truly been called the manifesto of the 
new romantic school. This volume included some of 
Wordsworth's loveliest lyrics, and the great Lines 
Written Above Tintern Abbey; Coleridge's most im- 
portant contribution was The Ancient Mariner. The 
purpose of the poets was characteristic. Wordsworth 



SAMUEL TAYLOE COLEKIDGE 147 

was to reveal the romance in common things, while 
Coleridge was to bring the strange and the remote 
near to the common heart. Each poet achieved mar- 
velously well his appointed task, and the poems in 
the little book throw a similar light, at once familiar 
and mystical, over the weird supernatural adventures 
of the Ancient Mariner and the prattlings about death 
of a little cottage girl. 

The year of the Lyrical Ballads, — 1797-1798, — was 
the Annus Mirabilis of Coleridge's genius. His life 
from this point on presents a picture of thwarted en- 
deavors and growing weakness. Yet the change was 
gradual. After the waning of his social hopes, he 
turned to German philosophic studies, and spent some 
time in Germany. On his return, he stayed for a 
while in the lovely English Lake country where his 
friends had now settled, and the trio — Wordsworth, 
Dorothy, and Coleridge — knew happy times wander- 
ing over the hills or sitting in the garden of the tiny 
Dove Cottage which is now a pilgrim shrine. Two 
sons had been born to him, and despite a certain strain 
in his domestic . relations, life opened richly. But 
already he had begun his struggle against ill health. 
It was in 1801 that he first took opium in order to 
relieve pain ; and continued taking it as we must be- 
lieve to relieve mental restlessness and distress. "His 
excitable and dreamy temperament fell an easy victim 
to the drug, and we contemplate for years the painful 
spectacle of a Coleridge whom neither the generous 
help of his devoted friends nor' the ceaseless efforts 
of his own conscience succeeded in rescuing from his 
chains. Southey in the meantime supported his 



148 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

family ; and Coleridge, who, despite his weakness, was 
a sensitive, high-principled, and truly religious man, 
suffered piteously if intermittently from the situation. 
Through the help of a physician, Dr. Gillman, he 
rallied somewhat at last ; and he spent the concluding 
fifteen years of his life in the family of this doctor, 
gathering round him a group of young disciples over 
whom he exercised his own wonderful spell, and seek- 
ing in vain to prepare for posterity his magnum opus, 
a great philosophic work which was to place the spir- 
itual interpretation of the universe on a firm founda- 
tion. It was through conversation rather than through 
writing that in these later times he left his mark on 
his generation, and many an account has come down 
to us of that amazing talk: the best probably was 
written by Carlyle in his Life of John Sterling, (chap- 
ter VIII.). Against this description, not wholly favor- 
able, we may place the words of Charles Lamb written 
a few weeks before his own death: "His great and 
dear spirit haunts me ; I never saw his likeness, nor 
probably the world can see again.' ' Wordsworth 
called him "The most wonderful man I have ever 
known." And one likes in concluding the impres- 
sion of the man, to recall the portrait drawn by 
Dorothy in his youth : ' ' He is a wonderful man. His 
conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. . . . 
At first I thought him very plain, that is for about 
three minutes; he is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, 
thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish, loose- 
growing, half-curling rough black hair. But if you 
hear him speak for five minutes you think no more 
of them. His eye is large and full, and not very dark, 



SAMUEL TAYLOE COLEEIDGE 149 

but grey, — such an eye as would receive from a heavy 
soul the dullest expression; but it speaks every emo- 
tion of his animated mind; it has more of the 'poet's 
eye in a fine frenzy rolling' than I ever witnessed. 
He has fine dark eyebrows, and an over-hanging 
forehead. ' ' 

II. 
We spoke of Coleridge's poetic product as slender, 
yet after all his verse fills a fairly large volume. Be- 
side the little that bears the hall-mark of authentic 
inspiration, he wrote various other things: several 
dramas, — a translation of Schiller's Wallenstein, and 
three original plays, Osorio, Remorse, and Zapolya, 
beside a curious joint product of his youth and 
Southey's called The Fall of Robespierre. We find 
meditative poems, like The Molian Harp, Religious 
Musings, Fears in Solitude, and the better known 
Hymn Before Sunrise in the Yale of Chamounix. We 
find the really fine odes, France and Dejection, and 
we find a number of occasional pieces and frag- 
ments. But all these are unimportant compared with 
the small group — mostly the product of a brief period 
of his youth — that includes Christabel, Kubla Khan, 
and The Ancient Mariner. These outsoar the others 
as a lark outsoars a sparrow. They date mostly from 
the happy times of his early friendship with Words- 
worth, but before the poets met the quality of Cole- 
ridge at his best had once or twice been evident. 
Lewti, a little love poem in which we first catch the 
magic of his accents, dates from 1794; and after his 
short period of inspiration had closed, the old light 
now and again flashes for a moment through his writ- 



150 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

ing, as in Glycine's exquisite song in Zapolya, or in 
the touching, haunting lyric, Youth and Age. We 
may believe Coleridge to have been right when he 
said wistfully, in speaking of the unfinished condition 
of Christ ao el, that if only he could have a quiet mind 
and hear good music he could to the end have written 
as good verse as ever. 

His work for English letters, however, is not con- 
fined to his verse. He wrote much prose, more or 
less scattered and inchoate in form, but fruitful in 
suggestion. His Essays in the two reviews he pub- 
lished, The Watchman and The Friend, his Bio- 
graphia Litteraria, his Aids to Reflection, fill solid 
volumes. Even his Table Talk has been treasured by 
those who felt that each word which fell from his lips 
was precious. No one can deny the value of this 
work. The literary criticisms found especially in the 
Biographia Litteraria remain to this day fecund in 
suggestiveness and in wisdom ; as to his philosophical 
thinking, though his most devoted disciple struggled 
in vain after his death to compress it within the limits 
of a system, we may at least say that the attitude he 
suggested has been the starting point for much later 
Christian speculation in England. And yet, while we 
recognize the full value of Coleridge's varied contri- 
bution, we can but grieve to recognize in him, as 
Shelley said, 

a mind 
Within its own exceeding lustre blind — 

thought-bewildered, as it were, to the end. 

This bewilderment does not show itself in his poems. 
These are an organic part of that romantic movement 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 151 

which inspired also Scott, Shelley, Wordsworth, 
Byron, and Keats. Scott was moved to write his Lay 
of the Last Minstrel by the as yet unpublished manu- 
script of Christ ab el. The Ancient Mariner marks the 
climax of that quickening devotion with which old 
ballads had been studied ever since Bishop Percy 
published his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 
1765. On every hand, we see that Coleridge strength- 
ened the impulses of his period and was docile to these 
impulses even when he focussed them into rays of 
new potency and beauty. 

At first sight, it seems inconceivable that the prose 
and poetry of Coleridge should be products of the 
same genius; the prose, though eloquent and pro- 
found, so clumsy, halting, fragmentary; at its best, 
laden with didacticism, and at its worst recalling 
the hopelessly commonplace moral musings of the 
eighteenth century; the finer poetry, on the other 
hand, so flute-like in purity of tone, so incomparable 
for the release of mortal speech from its fetters. But 
the poetry and the prose have one fundamental fact 
in common : that mysticism of temperament which in 
the prose seeks humbly and more or less vainly to 
submit itself to the yoke of logic and sanctified com- 
mon sense, but in the poetry soars free. His work 
as a whole recalls the wise words of George Macdon- 
ald: "In wonder begins the soul of man, in wonder 
it ends; and investigation fills up the interspace." 
Coleridge's poetry belongs to that strange quarter of 
a century when the power to create myth seems reborn 
in the world of imagination. Like Shelley in Pro- 
metheus Unbound, like Keats in Hyperion, he does 



152 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

not invent, but sees. His arctic waters, his skeleton 
ship across the setting sun, his water-snakes dripping 
flakes of light, quicken our horror, awe, and love, 
"because they were no artificial symbol, but a gift 
vouchsafed his inward eye. This power of vision and 
of freed emotion blesses him chiefly when the labors 
of his thought are suspended. Religious Musings, 
Fears in Solitude, though they have admirable lines, 
are the work of a humble Christian thinker, and are 
moralized till the imagination pales. Kubla Khan and 
Christ ah el are the direct expression of a spirit freed 
from earthly trammels and rejoicing unhampered in 
the wonder of life, experienced where beauty is 
eternal. 

Perhaps the most marked thing about his best poems 
is the incommunicable magic of the style. "His 
magic, that which makes his poetry, was but the re- 
lease in art of a winged thought fluttering helplessly 
among speculations and theories," said Symons: "It 
was the song of release. ' ' " The most decrepit vocable 
in the language,'' said Lowell, "flings away its 
crutches to dance and sing at his bidding. ' ' Cadence, 
movement, diction, have a charm that is beyond all 
praise. Coleridge's own distinction between prose and 
poetry may help us a little: "Prose, — words in their 
best order ; poetry, — the best words in the best order. ' ' 
The best words : any one who studies The Ancient 
Mariner or Christaoel discovers what they are : very 
simple words in this case, that carry thought beyond 
itself into vision : 

The Sun's rim dips: the stars rush out: 
At one stride comes the dark: 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 153 

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, 
Off shot the spectre bark. 

We listened and looked side-ways up! 

Fear at my heart, as at a cup, 

My life-blood seemed to sip! . . . 

They are the best words, but their order is not so 
different from that of prose; nor need we wonder, 
since the order of good prose is to be the best. 

In addition to style, and perhaps yet more impor- 
tant, one notes imagination : what gives value to Kubla 
Khan is certainly not ideas, nor moral concepts. Cole- 
ridge has the imagination that penetrates ultimate 
secrets, recognizing innumerable trembling meanings 
behind the veil of sense. There is an exquisite Tight- 
ness of tone, in which each detail, however simple 
and external, plays its part in the creation of the 
desired mood. There is the hint of what must never 
be said: 

A sight to dream of, not to tell, — ■ 
O save her, save sweet Christabel! 

There is the light straight from the sky, in which his 
genius is singing: 

A sunny shaft I did behold, 

From sky to earth it slanted: 
And poised therein a bird so bold — 

Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted — 

One likes to multiply from Coleridge's own words 
the images of his genius. 

.And finally, behind imagination and loveliness of 
style there is a pure normal sense of the worth of 
blest human things: tenderness, with its rich range 



154 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

from pity to adoration, fellowship with man and 
beast, rectitude, duty. The Ancient Mariner carries 
us on a voyage most adventurous, over weird waters 
on an unknown plane of being haunted by strange 
sights and sounds, only that we may return to our 
home-harbor, competent to know that the last lines of 
the poem express no platitude, but the end of all 
adventure : 

He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things, both great and small. 

The strange hints of Christabel, with its almost un- 
bearable suggestion of beauty and horror, are placed 
in a setting of simple girlish compassion and hospi- 
tality, and the lines that have most made their way 
into the general heart describe the common and en- 
during pain of broken friendship. Coleridge's verse 
is no empty fantasy: at its most faery-like, it holds 
in solution the dearest feelings and achievements of 
our everyday human life. In his own words, his mind 
"can call goodness its play-fellow. ' ' 

III. 

"What has been said in general applies to the special 
poems included in this volume, and they require little 
further comment. The Ancient Mariner is not given 
here because it is already included in another volume 
of this series, with the excellent editorship of the late 
William Vaughn Moody. 

Kubla Khan, so Coleridge tells us, was composed in 
a dream at the time when his genius was at its height, 
in 1798. It has thus a special psychological interest; 






SAMUEL TAYLOB COLERIDGE 155 

and its charm is in the dream-like images which its 
interwoven melodies evoke. There is even a remem- 
bered vision within the dream itself, so that we are 
kept at two removes from waking reality ! No one 
need seek here for coherence or definite meaning ; the 
human element, on which we just said that Coleridge's 
poetry is usually founded, is not here to be found. 
But the final couplet gives, as no pedestrian speech 
can do, the impression which such verse conveys. The 
sensitiveness to sound in which Coleridge excelled 
most poets here blends with images of sight and mo- 
tion to create a mood of delighted awe, which is the 
final triumph always desired by romantic art. "It 
has just enough meaning to give it bodily existence, ' ' 
writes a critic: "otherwise it would be disembodied 
music. It seems to hover in the air like one of the 
island enchantments of Prospero. . . . Lamb, 
who tells us how Coleridge repeated it 'so enchant- 
ingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and elysian 
bowers into my parlor when he says or sings it to me, ' 
doubted whether it would 'bear daylight.' It seemed 
to him that such witchcraft could hardly outlast the 
night. It has outlasted the century, and may still 
be used as a touchstone ; it will determine the poetic 
value of any lyric poem you place beside it."* 

The first part of Christabel was written in 1798, 
the second probably in 1801 ; the poem remains unfin- 
ished, perhaps to our loss, perhaps to our gain. It 
was originally meant for a second volume of Lyrical 
Ballads, which never materialized, partly because 
Coleridge could not finish his work on time. For 

* Arthur Symons : The Romantic Movement in English Poetry. 



156 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

years it remained in manuscript, enthralling and in- 
fluencing all who heard it, and was finally in 1816 
published in its fragmentary condition at the request 
of Byron. Coleridge himself liked the first canto best. 
"Certainly," he said, "it is more perfect, has more 
of the true wild weird spirit than the last." This is 
unquestionably true ; the first canto is pure wizardry, 
"witchery by daylight," as the Quarterly Review 
remarked with more felicity than it usually showed in 
its criticisms. The second, though spirited and mu- 
sical, is more in the ordinary vein of the romantic 
ballad, as handled, for instance, by Sir Walter Scott. 
We must however remember, in making any such com- 
parison, that Scott had received his inspiration in 
part from this very poem, and that the originality of 
Coleridge is unquestioned, Moreover the lively nar- 
rative of poems like Marmion or The Lady of the Lake, 
or the pleasing use of faery charm in The Lay of the 
Last Minstrel, can hardly be compared with the elu- 
sive quality of Christabel, verse which transports us 
less into the mediaeval past than into a world inhabited 
by pure imaginative conceptions of beauty or horror. 
* " In Christ ah el there is a literal spell, not acting along 
any logical lines, not attacking the nerves, not terrify- 
ing, not intoxicating, but like a slow enveloping mist, 
which blots out the real world and leaves us unchilled 
by any 'airs from heaven or blasts from hell,' but in 
the native air of some middle region. ... I know 
no other verse in which the effects of music are so 
precisely copied in metre. Shelley you feel sings like 
a bird ; Blake like a child or an angel ; but Coleridge 
certainly writes music." 

* Arthur Symons, The Romantic Movement in English Poetry. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 157 

Critics discuss whether or no Coleridge knew what 
was to be the outcome of the story. Perhaps he did, 
though Wordsworth denied it; we never shall know. 
Yet in itself, reduced to plain prose, the story of the 
witch who weaves an evil enchantment round a fair 
and gentle maid, alienating from her her father's 
love, and possibly separating her from, her lover, is 
no more wild or strange than many another tale told 
in verse or prose during a period fascinated like the 
first quarter of the nineteenth century with strange 
romantic themes. The spell is in the treatment and 
the metre. Coleridge once dropped a pregnant hint : 
he said that the poem was "partly founded on the 
idea that the virtuous of the world save the wicked, " 
— a hint allowing us to believe that the discomfiture of 
his "sweet Christabel" might have been temporary, 
and that in the end the boundless pity of her maiden 
heart might have redeemed the doubtless spell-bound 
Geraldine. At another time, Coleridge suggested a 
different and longer plan, which will be found in the 
Notes. Meanwhile, for further introduction to the 
poem, we shall do best to turn to his own Preface : 



CHRISTABEL. 

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 1816. 

The first part of the following poem was written in 
the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset. 
The second part, after my return from Germany, in 



158 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

the year 1800, at Keswick, Cumberland. Since the 
latter date my poetic powers have been, till very 
lately, in a state of suspended animation. But as, in 
my very first conception of the tale, I had the whole 
present to my mind, with the wholeness, no less than 
with the liveliness of a vision ; I trust that I shall be 
able to embody in verse the three parts yet to come, in 
the course of the present year. 1 

It is probable, that if the poem had been finished at 
either of the former periods, or if even the first and 
second part had been published in the year 1800, the 
impression of its originality would have been much 
greater than I dare at present expect. But for this, I 
have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are 
mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding 
charges of plagiarism or servile imitation from my- 
self. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who 
seem to hold, that every possible thought and image 
is traditional ; who have no notion that there are such 
things as fountains in the world, small as well as 
great; and who would therefore charitably derive 
every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation 
made in some other man 's tank. I am confident, how- 
ever, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the 
celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected 
of having imitated, either in particular passages, or 
in the tone and the spirit of the whole, would be 
among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and 
who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to 
address them in this doggerel version of two monkish 
Latin hexameters: — 



1 But this hope was illusory. 






CHBISTABEL 159 

' ' 'Tis mine and it is likewise yours ; 
But an if this will not do, 
Let it be mine, dear friend! for I 
Am the poorer of the two." 

I have only to add, that the metre of the Christabel 
is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may 
seem so from its being founded on a new principle; 
namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not 
the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven 
to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found 
to be only four. Nevertheless this occasional varia- 
tion in number of syllables is not introduced wan- 
tonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in 
correspondence with some transition, in the nature of 
the imagery or passion. 



'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, 
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock, 

Tu— whit !- Tu— whoo ! 

And hark, again! the crowing cock, 
6 How drowsily it crew. 

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, 
Hath a toothless mastiff, which 
From her kennel beneath the rock 
Maketh answer to the clock, 
10 Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour ; 
Ever and aye, by shine and shower, 
Sixteen short howls, not over loud; 
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. 



160 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Is the night chilly and dark ? 
15 The night is chilly, but not dark. 

The thin gray cloud is spread on high, 

It covers but not hides the sky. 

The moon is behind, and at the full ; 

And yet she looks both small and dull. 
20 The night is chill, the cloud is gray : 

'Tis a month before the month of May, 

And the Spring comes slowly up this way. 

The lovely lady, Christabel, 

"Whom her father loves so well, 
25 "What makes her in the wood so late, 

A furlong from the castle gate? 

She had dreams all yesternight 

Of her own betrothed knight; 

And she in the midnight wood will pray 
30 For the weal of her lover that's far away. 

She stole along, she nothing spoke, 
The sighs she heaved were soft and low, 
And naught was green upon the oak 
But moss and rarest mistletoe ; 
35 She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, 
And in silence prayeth she. 

The lady sprang up suddenly, 
The lovely lady, Christabel! 
It moaned as near, as near can be, 
40 But what it is she cannot tell. — 
On the other side it seems to be, 
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. 




CHEISTABEL 161 

The night is chill ; the forest bare ; 

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ? 
45 There is not wind enough in the air 

To move away the ringlet curl 

From the lovely lady's cheek — 

There is not wind enough to twirl 

The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 
50 That dances as often as dance it can, 

Hanging so light, and hanging so high, 

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 

Hush, beating heart of Christabel! 
Jesu Maria, shield her well! 
55 She folded her arms beneath her cloak, 
And stole to the other side of the oak. 
What sees she there? 

There she sees a damsel bright, 

Drest in a silken robe of white, 
60 That shadowy in the moonlight shone : 

The neck that made that white robe wan, 

Her stately neck, and arms were bare ; 

Her blue-veined feet unsandall'd were, 

And wildly glittered here and there 
65 The gems entangled in her hair. 

I guess, 't was frightful there to see 

A lady so richly clad as she — _ 

Beautiful exceedingly! 

"Mary mother, save me now!" 
70 (Said Christabel,) "And who art thou?" 



162 SHOKTEK ENGLISH POEMS 

The lady strange made answer meet, 
And her voice was faint and sweet: — ■ 
"Have pity on. my sore distress, 
I scarce can speak for weariness:" 
15 ' ' Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear ! ' ' 
Said Christabel, ' ' How earnest thou here ? ' ' 
And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet, 
Did thus pursue her answer meet : — . 

"My sire is of a noble line, 
so And my name is Geraldine : 

Five warriors seized me yestermorn, 

Me, even me, a maid forlorn : 

They choked my cries with force and fright, 

And tied me on a palfrey white. 
85 The palfrey was as fleet as wind, 

And they rode furiously behind. 

They spurred amain, their steeds were white : 

And once we crossed the shade of night. 

As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, 
90 I have no thought what men they be ; 

Nor do I know how long it is 

(For I have lain entranced iwis) 

Since one, the tallest of the five, 

Took me from the palfrey's back, 
95 A weary woman, scarce alive. 

Some muttered words his comrades spoke : 

He placed me underneath this oak ; 

He swore they would return with haste; 

Whither they went I cannot tell — 
loo I thought I heard, some minutes past, 

Sounds as of a castle bell. 



CHEISTABEL 163 

Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she,) 
And help a wretched maid to flee." 

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand, 
105 And comforted fair Geraldine : 

( ' Oh, well, bright dame ! may you command 

The service of Sir Leoline; 

And gladly our stout chivalry 

"Will he send forth, and friends withal, 
no To guide and guard you safe and free 

Home to your noble father's hall." 

She rose : and forth with steps they passed 

That strove to be, and were not, fast. 

Her gracious stars the lady blest, 
115 And thus spake on sweet Christabel : 

"All our household are at rest, 

The hall as silent as the cell; 

Sir Leoline is weak in health, 

And may not well awakened be, 
120 But we will move as if in stealth, 

And I beseech your courtesy, 

This night, to share your couch with me." 

They crossed the moat, and Christabel 

Took the key that fitted well ; 
125 A little door she opened straight, 

All in the middle of the gate ; 

The gate that was ironed within and without, 

Where an army in battle array had marched out. 

The lady sank, belike through pain, 
130 And Christabel with might and main 



164 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Lifted her up, a weary weight, 
Over the threshold of the gate : 
Then the lady rose again, 
And moved, as she were not in pain. 

185 So free from danger, free from fear, 

They crossed the court : right glad they were. 

And Christabel devoutly cried 

To the lady by her side : 

' ' Praise we the Virgin all divine 

140 Who hath rescued thee from thy distress ! ' ' 
"Alas, alas!" said Geraldine, 
"I cannot speak for weariness." 
So free from danger, free from fear, 
They crossed the court : right glad they were. 

145 Outside her kennel the mastiff old 

Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold. 

The mastiff old did not awake, 

Yet she an angry moan did make ! 

And what can ail the mastiff bitch ? 
150 Never till now she uttered yell 

Beneath the eye of Christabel. 

Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch: 

For what can ail the mastiff bitch? 

They passed the hall, that echoes still, 
155 Pass as lightly as you will ! 

The brands were flat, the brands were dying, 
Amid their own white ashes lying; 
But when the lady passed, there came 
A tongue of light, a fit of flame ; 



CHEISTABEL 165 

160 And Christabel saw the lady 's eye, 
And nothing else saw she thereby, 
Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, 
Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. 
"Oh softly tread," said Christabel, 

165 "My father seldom sleepeth well." 

Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare, 
And jealous of the listening air, 
They steal their way from stair to stair, 
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom, 
170 And now they pass the Baron 's room, 
As still as death, with stifled breath! 
And now have reached her chamber door ; 
And now doth Geraldine press down 
The rushes of the chamber floor. 

175 The moon shines dim in the open air, 

And not a moonbeam enters here. 

But they without its light can see 

The chamber carved so curiously, 

Carved with figures strange and sweet, 
180 All made out of the carver's brain, 

For a lady's chamber meet: 

The lamp with twofold silver chain 

Is fastened to an angel's feet. 

The silver lamp burns dead and dim; 
185 But Christabel the lamp will trim. 

She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright, 

And left it swinging to and fro, 

While Geraldine, in wretched plight, 

Sank down upon the floor below. 



166 SHOETEB ENGLISH POEMS 

190 "0 weary lady, Geraldine, 

I pray you, drink this cordial wine ! 

It is a wine of virtuous powers ; 

My mother made it of wild flowers. " 

"And will your mother pity me, 
195 Who am a maiden most forlorn ? ' ' 

Christabel answered — "Woe is me! 

She died the hour that I was born. 

I have heard the gray-haired friar tell, 

How on her death-bed she did say, 
200 That she should hear the castle-bell 

Strike twelve upon my wedding-day. 

mother dear ! that thou wert here ! ' ' 

' ' I would, ' ' said Geraldine, i ' she were ! ' ' 

But soon with altered voice, said she — 
205 ' ' Off, wandering mother ! Peak and pine ! 

1 have power to bid thee flee." 
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine? 
Why stares she with unsettled eye? 
Can she the bodiless dead espy? 

210 And why with hollow voice cries she, 
"Off, woman, off! this hour is mine — 
Though thou her guardian spirit be, 
Off, woman, off! 'tis given to me." 

Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side, 
'2T5 And raised to heaven her eyes so blue — 
"Alas!" said she, this ghastly ride — 
"Dear lady! it hath wildered you!" 
The lady wiped her moist cold brow, 
And faintly said, " 'tis over now!" 



CHEISTABEL 167 

220 Again the wild-flower wine she drank : 

Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright, 

And from the floor whereon she sank, 

The lofty lady stood upright; 

She was most beautiful to see, 
225 Like a lady of a far countree. 

And thus the lofty lady spake — 
"All they, who live in the upper sky, 
Do love you, holy Christabel! 
And you love them, and for their sake 
230 And for the good which me befell, 
Even I in my degree will try, 
Fair maiden, to requite you well. 
But now unrobe yourself ; for I 
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie." 

235 Quoth Christabel, ' ' So let it be ! " 
And as the lady bade, did she. 
Her gentle limbs did she undress, 
And lay down in her loveliness. 

But through her brain of weal and woe 
240 So many thoughts moved to and fro, 
That vain it were her lids to close : 
So half-way from the bed she rose, 
And on her elbow did recline 
To look at the lady Geraldine. 

245 Beneath the lamp the lady bowed, 
And slowly rolled her eyes around; 
Then drawing in her breath aloud, 
Like one that shuddered, she unbound 



168 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

The cincture from beneath her breast: 
250 Her silken robe, and inner vest, 
Dropt to her feet, and full in view, 
Behold! her bosom and half her side — 
A sight to dream of, not to tell! 
Oh shield her! shield sweet Christabel! 

255 Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs; 
Ah ! what a stricken look was hers ! 
Deep from within she seems half-way 
To lift some weight with sick assay, 
And eyes the maid and seeks delay; 
260 Then suddenly, as one defied, 

Collects herself in scorn and pride, 
And lay down by the maiden's side! — 
And in her arms the maid she took, 
Ah well-a-day! 
265 And with low voice and doleful look 
These words did say: 
' ' In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell, 
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel! 
Thou knowest tonight, and wilt know tomorrow, 
270 This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow ; 
But vainly thou warrest, 

For this is alone in 
Thy power to declare, 
That in the dim forest 
275 Thou heard 'st a low moaning, 

And found 'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair: 
And didst bring her home with thee in love and in 

charity, 
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air. ' ' 



CHBISTABEL 169 



THE CONCLUSION TO PART I. 



It was a lovely sight to see 
280 The lady Christabel, when she 
Was praying at the old oak tree. 
Amid the jagged shadows 
Of mossy leafless boughs, 
Kneeling in the moonlight, 
285 To make her gentle vows; 

Her slender palms together prest, 
Heaving sometimes on her breast ; 
Her face resigned to bliss or bale — ■ 
Her face, oh call it fair not pale, 
290 And both blue eyes more bright than clear, 
Each about to have a tear. 

With open eyes (ah woe is me!) 

Asleep, and dreaming fearfully, 

Fearfully dreaming, yet iwis, 
295 Dreaming that alone, which is — 

sorrow and shame ! Can this be she, 

The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree? 

And lo! the worker of these harms, 

That holds the maiden in her arms, 
300 Seems to slumber still and mild, 

As a mother with her child. 

A star hath set, a star hath risen, 
Geraldine! since arms of thine 
Have been the lovely lady's prison. 
305 O Geraldine ! one hour was thine — 

Thou'st had thy will! By tairn and rill, 
The night-birds all that hour were still. 



170 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

But now they are jubilant anew, 

From cliff and tower, tu — whoo! tu — whoo! 
310 Tu — whoo ! tu — whoo ! from wood and fell ! 

And see ! the lady Christabel 

Gathers herself from out her trance ; 

Her limbs relax, her countenance 

Grows sad and soft ; the smooth thin lids 
315 Close o 'er her eyes ; and tears she sheds — 

Large tears that leave the lashes bright ! 

And oft the while she seems to smile 

As infants at a sudden light! 

Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep, 
320 Like a youthful hermitess, 

Beauteous in a wilderness, 

Who, praying always, prays in sleep. 

And, if she move unquietly, 

Perchance, 'tis but the blood so free, 
325 Comes back and tingles in her feet. 

No doubt she hath a vision sweet. 

What if her guardian spirit 'twere? 

What if she knew her mother near ? 

But this she knows, in joys and woes, 
330 That saints will aid if men will call : 

For the blue sky bends over all ! 

PART II. 

Each matin bell, the Baron saith, 
Knells us back to a world of death. 
These words Sir Leoline first said, 
335 When he rose and found his lady dead ; 
These words Sir Leoline will say, 
Many a morn to his dying day ! 







CHRISTABEL 171 

And hence the custom and law began, 
That still at dawn the sacristan, 
340 Who duly pulls the heavy bell, 
Five and forty beads must tell 
Between each stroke — a warning knell, 
Which not a soul can choose but hear 
From Bratha Head to Wyndermere. 

345 Saith Bracy the bard, So let it knell ! 

And let the drowsy sacristan 

Still count as slowly as he can ! 

There is no lack of such, I ween, 

As well fill up the space between. 
350 In Langdale Pike and Witch 's lair, 

And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent, 

With ropes of rock and bells of air 

Three sinful sextons' ghosts are pent, 

Who all give back, one after t'other, 
355 The death-note to their living brother ; 

And oft too, by the knell offended, 

Just as their one ! two ! three ! is ended, 

The devil mocks the doleful tale 

With a merry peal from Borodale. 

360 The air is still ! through mist and cloud 

That merry peal comes ringing loud; 

And Geraldine shakes off her dread, 

And rises lightly from the bed ; 

Puts on her silken vestments white, 
365 And tricks her hair in lovely plight, 

And nothing doubting of her spell 

Awakens the lady Christabel. 



172 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

"Sleep yon, sweet lady Christabel? 
I trust that you have rested well/' 

370 And Christabel awoke and spied 
The same who lay down by her side — 
Oh rather say, the same whom she 
Eaised up beneath the old oak tree ! 
Nay, fairer yet; and yet more fair! 

375 For she belike hath drunken deep 
Of all the blessedness of sleep ! 
And while she spake, her looks, her air 
Such gentle thankfulness declare, 
That (so it seemed) her girded vests 

380 Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts. 
"Sure I have sinned!" said Christabel, 
' ' Now heaven be praised if all be well ! ' ' 
And in low faltering tones, yet sweet, 
Did she the lofty lady greet, 

385 With such perplexity of mind 
As dreams too lively leave behind. 

So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed 
Her maiden limbs, and having prayed 
That He, who on the cross did groan, 
390 Might wash away her sins unknown, 
She forthwith led fair Geraldine 
To meet her sire, Sir Leoline. 

The lovely maid and lady tall 
Are pacing both into the hall, 
395 And pacing on through page and groom, 
Enter the Baron's presence-room. 



CHRISTABEL 173 

The Baron rose, and while he prest 
His gentle daughter to his breast, 
With cheerful wonder in his eyes 
400 The lady Geraldine espies, 

And gave such welcome to the same, 
As might beseem so bright a dame ! 

But when he heard the lady's tale, 
And when she told her father's name, 
405 Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale, 
Murmuring o'er the name again, 
Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine? 

Alas! they had been friends in youth; 

But whispering tongues can poison truth; 
410 And constancy lives in realms above ; 

And life is thorny ; and youth is vain ; 

And to be wroth with one we love 

Doth work like madness in the brain. 

And thus it chanced, as I divine, 
415 With Roland and Sir Leoline. 

Each spake words of high disdain 

And insult to his heart's best brother: 

They parted — ne'er to meet again! 

But never either found another 
420 To free the hollow heart from paining — 

They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; 

A dreary sea now flows between; — 

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 
425 Shall wholly do away, I ween, 

The marks of that which once hath been. 



174 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Sir Leoline, a moment's space, 
Stood gazing on the damsel's face: 
And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine 
430 Came back upon his heart again. 

Oh then the Baron forgot his age, 

His noble heart swelled high with rage; 

He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side, 

He would proclaim it far and wide 
435 With trump and solemn heraldry, 

That they who thus had wronged the dame, 

Were base as spotted infamy! 

' ' And if they dare deny the same, 

My herald shall appoint a week, 
440 And let the recreant traitors seek 

My tourney court — that there and then 

I may dislodge their reptile souls 

From the bodies and forms of men ! ' ' 

He spake : his eye in lightning rolls ! 
445 For the lady was ruthlessly seized ; and he kenned 

In the beautiful lady the child of his friend ! 

And now the tears were on his face, 

And fondly in his arms he took 

Fair Geraldine, who met the embrace, 
450 Prolonging it with joyous look. 

Which when she viewed, a vision fell 

Upon the soul of Christabel, 

The vision of fear, the touch and pain! 

She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again — 
455 (Ah, woe is me ! Was it for thee, 

Thou gentle maid! such sights to see?) 



CHEISTABEL 175 

Again she saw that bosom old, 
Again she felt that bosom cold, 
And drew in her breath with a hissing sound : 
460 Whereat the Knight turned wildly round, 
And nothing saw but his own sweet maid 
With eyes upraised, as one that prayed. 

The touch, the sight, had passed away, 

And in its stead that vision blest, 
465 Which comforted her after-rest 

While in the lady's arms she lay, 

Had put a rapture in her breast, 

And on her lips and o'er her eyes 

Spread smiles like light! 

With new surprise, 
470 "What ails then my beloved child?" 

The Baron said — His daughter mild 

Made answer, "All will yet be well!" 

I ween, she had no power to tell 
Aught else : so mighty was the spell. 

475 Yet he, who saw this Geraldine, 

Had deemed her sure a thing divine. 

Such sorrow with such grace she blended, 

As if she feared she had offended 

Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid! 
480 And with such lowly tones she prayed, 

She might be sent without delay 

Home to her father's mansion. 

"Nay! 

Nay, by my soul!" said Leoline. 

I I Ho ! Bracy, the bard, the charge be thine ! 



176 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

485 Go thou, with music sweet and loud, 

And take two steeds with trappings proud, 
And take the youth whom thou lov'st best 
To bear thy harp, and learn thy song, 
And clothe you both in solemn vest, 

490 And over the mountains haste along, 
Lest wandering folk, that are abroad, 
Detain you on the valley road. 
And when he has crossed the Irthing flood, 
My merry bard ! he hastes, he hastes 

495 Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood, 
And reaches soon that castle good 
Which stands and threatens Scotland's wastes. 

"Bard Bracy; bard Bracy! your horses are fleet, 
Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet 

500 More loud than your horses' echoing feet! 
And loud and loud to Lord Koland call, 
Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall! 
Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free- 
Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me. 

505 He bids thee come without delay 
With all thy numerous array; 
And take thy lovely daughter home : 
And he will meet thee on the way 
With all his numerous array 

510 White with their panting palfreys' foam: 
And by mine honor ! I will say, 
That I repent me of the day 
When I spake words of fierce disdain 
To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine 1^- 

515 — For since that evil hour hath flown/ 




CHEISTABEL 177 

Many a summer's sun hath shone; 

Yet ne 'er found I a friend again 

Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine." 

The lady fell, and clasped his knees, 
520 Her face upraised, her eyes o'erflowing; 

And Bracy replied, with faltering voice, 

His gracious hail on all bestowing! — 

"Thy words, thou sire of Christabel, 

Are sweeter than my harp can tell; 
525 Yet might I gain a boon of thee, 

This day my journey should not be, 

So strange a dream hath come to me; 

That I had vowed with music loud 

To clear yon wood from thing unblest, 
530 "Warned by a vision in my rest ! 

For in my sleep I saw that dove, 

That gentle bird, whom thou dost love, 

And call'st by thy own daughter's name — 

Sir Leoline ! I saw the same 
535 Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan, 

Among the green herbs in the forest alone. 

Which when I saw and when I heard, 

I wonder 'd what might ail the bird; 

For nothing near it could I see, 
540 Save the grass and green herbs underneath the old 
tree. 

"And in my dream methought I went 
To search out what might there be found ; 
And what the sweet bird's trouble meant, 
That thus lay fluttering on the ground. 



178 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

545 I went and peered, and could descry 
No cause for her distressful cry; 
But yet for her dear lady's sake 
I stooped, me thought, the dove to take, 
When lo! I saw a bright green snake 

550 Coiled around its wings and neck, 
Green as the herbs on which it couched, 
Close by the dove's its head it crouched; 
And with the dove it heaves and stirs, 
Swelling its neck as she swelled hers! 

555 I woke ; it was the midnight hour, 
The clock was echoing in the tower; 
But though my slumber was gone by, 
This dream it would not pass away — 
It seems to live upon my eye! 

560 And thence I vowed this self -same day, 
With music strong and saintly song, 
To wander through the forest bare, 
Lest aught unholy loiter there.' ' 

Thus Bracy said : the Baron, the while, 
565 Half -listening heard him with a smile ; 
Then turned to Lady Geraldine, 
His eyes made up of wonder and love ; 
And said in courtly accents fine, 
"Sweet maid, Lord Roland's beauteous dove, 
570 With arms more strong than harp or song, 
Thy sire and I will crush the snake ! ' ' 
He kissed her forehead as he spake, 
And Geraldine, in maiden wise, 
Casting down her large bright eyes, 
575 With blushing cheek and courtesy fine 



CHRISTABEL 179 

She turned her from Sir Leoline ; 
Softly gathering up her train, 
That o'er her right arm fell again ; 
And folded her arms across her chest, 
580 And couched her head upon her breast, 
And looked askance at Christabel — 
Jesu Maria, shield her well ! 

A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy, 

And the lady 's eyes they shrunk in her head, 
585 Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, 

And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread, 

At Christabel she looked askance! — 

One moment — and the sight was fled! 

But Christabel in dizzy trance 
590 Stumbling on the unsteady ground 

Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound; 

And Geraldine again turned round, 

And like a. thing that sought relief, 

Full of wonder and full of grief, 
595 She rolled her large bright eyes divine 

Wildly on Sir Leoline. 

The maid, alas ! her thoughts are gone, 
She nothing sees — no sight but one ! 
The maid, devoid of guile and sin, 
600 I know not how, in fearful wise 
So deeply had she drunken in 
That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, 
That all her features were resigned 
To this sole image in her mind; 



180 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

605 And passively did imitate 

That look of dull and treacherous hate ! 
And thus she stood in dizzy trance, 
Still picturing that look askance 
With forced unconscious sympathy 

610 Full before her father's view — 
As far as such a look could be, 
In eyes so innocent and blue ! 
And when the trance was o 'er, the maid 
Paused awhile, and inly prayed,: 

615 Then falling at the Baron's feet, 
"By my mother's soul do I entreat 
That thou this woman send away!" 
She said : and more she could not say : 
For what she knew she could not tell, 

620 'ermastered by the mighty spell. 

Why is thy cheek so wan and wild, 

Sir Leoline? Thy only child 

Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride, 

So fair, so innocent, so mild ; 
625 The same, for whom thy lady died ! 

Oh by the pangs of her dear mother 

Think thou no evil of thy child! 

For her, and thee, and for no other, 

She prayed the moment ere she died: 
630 Prayed that the babe for whom she died, 

Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride! 

That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled, 
Sir Leoline! 

And wouldst thou wrong thy only child, 
635 Her child and thine? 



CHEISTABEL 181 

Within the Baron's heart and brain 

If thoughts, like these, had any share, 

They only swelled his rage and pain, 

And did but work confusion there. 
640 His heart was cleft with pain and rage, 

His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild — 

Dishonored thus in his old age; 

Dishonored by his only child, 

And all his hospitality 
645 To the insulted daughter of his friend 

By more than woman's jealousy 

Brought thus to a disgraceful end- 
He rolled his eye with stern regard 

Upon the gentle minstrel bard, 
660 And said in tones abrupt, austere — 

"Why, Bracy! dost thou loiter here? 

I bade thee hence ! ' ' The bard obeyed ; 

And turning from his own sweet maid, 

The aged knight, Sir Leoline, 
655 Led forth the lady Geraldine ! 

THE CONCLUSION OF PART II. 

A little child, a limber elf, 
Singing, dancing to itself, 
A fairy thing with red round cheeks, 
That always finds, and never seeks, 
660 Makes such a vision to the sight 
As fills a father's eyes with light; 
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast 
Upon his heart, that he at last 
Must needs express his love's excess 



182 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

665 With words of unmeant bitterness. 

Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together 

Thoughts so unlike each other; 

To mutter and mock a broken charm, 

To dally with wrong that does no harm. 
670 Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty 

At each wild word to feel within 

A sweet recoil of love and pity. 

And what, if in a world of sin 

(0 sorrow and shame should this be true!) 
675 Such giddiness of heart and brain 

Comes seldom save from rage and pain, 

So talks as it's most used to do. 



KUBLA KHAN; OR, A VISION IN A DREAM. 

A FRAGMENT. 

In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then 
in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house be- 
tween Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines 
of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a 
slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, 
from the effect of which he fell asleep in his chair at 
the moment he was reading the following sentence, 
or words of the same substance, in Purchases Pilgrim- 
age: — "Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace 
to be built, and a stately garden thereunto: and thus 
ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall. ' ' 
The author continued for about three hours in a pro- 
found sleep, at least of the external senses, during 



KUBLA KHAN 183 

which time he has the most vivid confidence that he 
could not have composed less than from two to three 
hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composi- 
tion in which all the images rose up before him as 
things, with a parallel production of the correspond- 
ent expressions, without any sensation or conscious- 
ness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself 
to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking 
his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote 
down the lines that are here preserved. At this mo- 
ment he was unfortunately called out by a person 
on business from Porlock, and detained by him above 
an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his 
no small surprise and mortification, that though he 
still retained some vague and dim recollection of the 
general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception 
of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all 
the rest had passed away like the images on the sur- 
face of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, 
alas! without the after restoration of the latter. 

Then all the charm 
Is broken — all that phantom-world so fair 
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, 
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile, 
Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes — 
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon 
The visions will return! And lo! he stays, 
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms 
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more 
The pool becomes a mirror. 

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his 
mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish 
for himself what had been originally, as it were, given 



184 SHOKTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

to him. Avpiov ahiov aaa> but the tomorrow is yet to 
come. 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pieasure-dome decree : 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 

5 Down to a sunless sea. 

So twice five miles of fertile ground 
With walls and towers were girdled round: 
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 

10 And here were forests ancient as the hills, 
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! 
A savage place! as holy and enchanted 

15 As e 'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 
By woman wailing for her demon-lover! 
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 
A mighty fountain momently was forced ; 

20 Amid whose swift half -intermitted burst 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: 
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 
It flung up momently the sacred river. 

25 Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 
Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: 
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

30 Ancestral voices prophesying war ! 



CHEISTABEL: NOTES 185 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

Floated midway on the waves; 

Where was heard the mingled measure 

From the fountain and the caves. 
It was a miracle of rare device, 
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 

A damsel with a dulcimer 

In a vision once I saw: 

It was an Abyssinian maid, 

And on her dulcimer she played, 

Singing of Mount Abora. 

Could I revive within me, 

Her symphony and song, 

To such a deep delight 'twould win me, 

That with music loud and long, 

I would build that dome in air, 

That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! 

And all who heard should see them there, 

And all should cry, Beware ! Beware ! 
i His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 

Weave a circle round him thrice, 

And close your eyes with holy dread, 

For he on honey-dew hath fed, 

And drunk the milk of Paradise. 

CHEISTABEL. 

NOTES. 

PREFACE. 

Page 1. Coleridge's memory was at fault concerning the year 
in which the poem was written. The real date was 1798. This is 
proved by the Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth, from January to 
May, 1798. This Journal is full of jottings which promptly found 
their way into Coleridge's verse. The following passage in The 



186 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Prelude, Book 14, line 392 seq., also by the context indicates 1798 

for the year : 

Beloved Friend 
When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view 
Than any liveliest sight of yesterday, 
That summer, under whose indulgent skies 
Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved 
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs, 
Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart, 
Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man, 
The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes 
Didst utter of the Lady Christabel. 

The celebrated poets: This refers to Scott and Byron. Between 
1805-1810 Scott had delighted the world with verse romances, The 
Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Lady of the Lake, and Marmion. 
But his star had paled before that of Byron, who in 1813 began 
with The Giaour a series of romantic tales, that gained tremendous 
though temporary popularity. No one today would think of classi- 
fying Christabel with either group. It belongs to a distinct and 
higher order of poetry. 

The metre of Christabel: Wordsworth said, reported by Mr. 
Justice Coleridge, that he attributed Coleridge's writing so little to 
the extreme care and labor which he applied in elaborating his 
metres. He said that when Coleridge was intent on a new experi- 
ment in metre, the time and labor he bestowed were inconceivable; 
that he was quite an epicure of sound. 

PART I. 
Line 3. Each of these four syllables is accented so that the 
rhythm is the same as that of the preceding line, which gives us 
two anapests and two iambs, eleven syllables. Line 10 has three 
dactyls and a trochee. Coleridge's daring method, described in his 
preface, yields enchanting results, and the variations in the metre 
should be carefully studied. 

16. The thin gray cloud: Here we can see the poet's imagina- 
tion working slowly toward the perfect expression. Dorothy's jour- 
nal for January 31 describes a sky effect seen by the friends. The 
moon "was immensely large, the sky scattered over with clouds ; 
these soon closed in, contracting the dimensions of the moon with- 
out concealing her." In the spring Coleridge's notebook has the 
following lines : 

Behind the thin 
Gray cloud that covered but not hid the sky 
The round, full moon looked small. 

Both passages show fine, sensitive observation, but the magic comes 
with the perfect word and movement of the passage as it stands. 



CHEISTABEL: NOTES 187 

49-52. Again the germ is in Dorothy Wordsworth's journal : 
"March 7, 1798. William and I drank tea at Coleridge's. A cloudy 
sky. Observed nothing particularly interesting — the distant pros- 
pect obscured. One only leaf upon the top of a tree — the sole 
remaining leaf — danced round and round like a rag blown by the 
wind." 

§8-65. The present text is that of the revision made by Cole- 
ridge in 1828-29. In 1816 this passage read : 

There she sees a damsel bright 

Drest in a silken robe of white ; 

Her neck, her feet, her arms were bare, 

And the jewels disordered in her hair. 

104-122. The passage in 1816 ran thus : 

Then Christabel stretch'd forth her hand 

And comforted fair Geraldine, 

Saying, that she should command 

The service of Sir Leoline ; 

And straight be convoy'd, free from thrall, 

Back to her noble father's hall. 

So up she rose, and forth they pass'd, 

With hurrying steps, yet nothing fast; 

Her lucky stars the lady blest, 

And Christabel she sweetly said — 

All our household are at rest, 

Each one sleeping on his bed ; 

Sir Leoline is weak in health, 

And may not well awaken'd be ; 

So to my room we'll creep in stealth, 

And you tonight must sleep with me. 

Here every change is an improvement. The direct speech con- 
notes a more alert imagination, placing us within ear-shot of the 
dialogue instead of coldly reporting it to us. Line 113 is more 
suggestive of some strong power abroad than is the old version. 
"Gracious" has dignity that "lucky" lacks. "Each one sleeping" 
is tautological. "Silent as the cell" helps the religious atmosphere 
which Coleridge subtly throws about Christabel ; and the last 
couplet is far more delicate than the original form. 

129. It was an old tradition that evil things could not pass a 
threshold. 

167. This lovely line was added in 1828. 

175 seq. Cf. the maiden chamber of Madeline in Keats' Eve of 
St. Agnes. 

203. Some see in this line a hint that Geraldine herself may 
have been no creature of darkness, though under an evil spell. 



188 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

218-219. The original version was so bad that it is hard to 
believe it authentic. 

The lady wiped her moist, cold brow, 
And faintly said, "I am better now." 

This and many other variant passages not quoted here, show that 
Coleridge's treatment was at first more colloquial and less imagina- 
tive than it became at the last, and that much of the exquisite 
detail was the result of careful revision. 

226. The hints continue, that Geraldine would not have harmed 
Christabel could she have helped it. The wine made by Christabel's 
mother seems again for a moment to restore her to her better self. 

252. A definite description of Geraldine's side, "lean and old 
and foul of hue," is in one of the manuscripts of the poem. Cole- 
ridge did far better to allow our shuddering imagination to play 
in freedom. 

CONCLUSION TO PART I. 

J 3 06. Tairn: 

1 310. Fell: These are Lake Country words used for the first 
time in the poem. The use of them might imply that this Con- 
clusion was not written before 1800, when Coleridge had moved 
to this region and become familiar with its phrases. 

318. In October, 1801, Coleridge notes this habit of his baby 
son Derwent. Cf. also his poem The Nightingale, lines 101-103. 

He knows well 
The evening-star : and once, when he awoke 
In most distressful mood (some inward pain 
Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream), 
I hurried with him to our orchard-plot, 
And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once, 
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, 
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears, 
Did glitter in the yellow moonbeam ! 

PART II. 

Coleridge said that the inspiration for this part was given him 
by Crashaw's Hymn to Saint Teresa, especially the passage describ- 
ing Teresa's journey as a little girl, when she ran away from home 
to seek martyrdom among the Moors. "Those verses," says Cole- 
ridge, ."were ever present to my mind whilst writing the second 
part of Christabel, if indeed by some subtle process of the mind 
they did not suggest the first thought of the whole poem." 

344. Part II is a Lake Country poem. The scene is laid, not 
in the conventional mediaeval castle, but in Langdale Hall and the 
familiar region dear to the brother poets and richly celebrated by 
Wordsworth, 




CHRISTABEL: NOTES 189 

350-360. Langdale Pike and Dungeon-ghyll both appear by name 
In Wordsworth's poems. The mountain-echoes Wordsworth de- 
lighted to notice, and he celebrates them more cheerily than does 
Coleridge, in his lines Joanna's Laugh. 

407. Tryermaine: Scott used the same word in The Bridal of 
Trier main in 1813. 

408. Coleridge called this passage "the best and sweetest lines 
I ever wrote." Some think Southey was in Coleridge's mind, others 
suggest other friends. The lines take us out of fairyland into the 
common light of everyday tenderness and pain. Byron imitated this 
passage, Childe Harold, Canto III., st. 94. 

459. The snake suggestion runs through the poem in connec- 
tion with Geraldine. It recalls the frequent use in fiction (Cf. Dr. 
Rappacini's Daughter, Hawthorne, and Elsie Venner, Oliver Wendell 
Holmes) of the motif of a fair girl poisoned by venom. In mediaeval 
romance there is a serpent maiden under a spell (as in the Middle 
English poem, Sir LUteaus Desconnus). Bracy's dream, line 530, 
helps the suggestion and leads to line 583, where it is given most 
clearly. 

463. The touch, the sight: In the manuscript this line read : 
"The pang, the sight, was passed away." Probably Coleridge 
changed it not to have the line resemble too closely one in the 
Ancient Mariner, Part VI. : 

"The pang, the curse with which they died 
Had never passed away." 

475-6. Swinburne says that Christaoel is the loveliest of Cole- 
ridge's poems, "for simple charm of inner and outer sweetness. . . . 
The very terror and mystery of magical evil is imbued with this 
sweetness. . . . The witch has no less of it than the maiden." 

582. When The Lay of the Last Minstrel appeared, Southey 
wrote to Wynn, March 5, 1805 : "The beginning of the story is too 
like Coleridge's Christobell, which he (Scott) had seen; the very 
line "Jesu Maria, shield her well !" is caught from it. ... I do 
not think [he copied anything] designedly, but the echo was in his 
ear, not for emulation, but propter amor em. This only refers to 
the beginning." 

CONCLUSION TO PART II. 

These lines were probably not originally meant for Christaoel. 
They were sent in a letter to Southey in May, 1801, and were 
probably written about that time, and referred to Coleridge's 
exquisite little son Hartley. They do not seem to have much con- 
nection with the poem except that they present the relation of 
parent and child. In Gilman's Life of Coleridge we are told that 
the poet on one occasion suggested the following scheme for the 
conclusion of the poem. Too much stress should not be placed 
on it: 



190 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

"The following relation was to have occupied a third and fourth 
canto, and to have closed the tale. Over the mountains, the Bard, 
as directed by Sir Leoline, hastes with his disciple ; but in con- 
sequence of one of those inundations supposed to be common to this 
country, the spot only where the castle once stood is discovered — 
the edifice itself being washed away. He determines to return. 
Geraldine being acquainted with all that is passing, like the weird 
sisters in Macbeth, vanishes. Reappearing, however, she awaits 
the return of the Bard, exciting in the meantime, by her wily arts, 
all the anger she could rouse in the Baron's breast, as well as that 
jealousy of which he is described to have been susceptible. The 
old Bard and the youth at length arrive, and therefore she can no 
longer personate the character of Geraldine, the daughter of Lord 
Roland de Vaux, but changes her appearance to that of the accepted 
though absent lover of Christabel. Now ensues a courtship most 
distressing to Christabel, who feels, she knows not why, great dis- 
gust for her once favored knight. This coldness is very painful 
to the Baron, who has no more conception than herself of the 
supernatural transformation. She at last yields to her father's 
entreaties, and consents to approach the altar with this hated 
suitor. The real lover returning, enters at this moment, and pro- 
duces the ring which she had once given him in sign of her 
betrothment. Thus defeated, the supernatural being Geraldine dis- 
appears. As predicted, the castle bell tolls, the mother's voice is 
heard, and to the exceeding great joy of the parties, the rightful 
marriage takes place, after which follows a reconciliation and ex- 
planation between the father and daughter." 

The hint dropped by Coleridge, mentioned in the Introduction, 
was to different effect. Probably his plan wavered in his mind. 






KUBLA KHAN. 
NOTES. 

Introduction, ajxpiov apiou a<ro) : Tomorrow I shall sing a 
sweeter song. 

Line 1. The following must be the passage to which Coleridge 
alludes : 

"In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing 
sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile 
Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightful streames, and all sorts of 
beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous 
house of pleasure." Purchas his Pilgrimage: Lond. fol. 1626, Bk. 
iv. chap, xiii., p. 418. 

Then all the charm, seq. These lines are from Coleridge's poem 
The Picture; or the Lover's Resolution. 



GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 



GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. 
I. 

Byron was born in 1788, a year before the Bastille 
was taken. He died in 1824, nine years after the battle 
of Waterloo. His life thus covered that period of politi- 
cal storms and* unrest spiritual and social which in- 
augurated the period we live in. Goldsmith and Gray 
represent a restrained epoch that "studied to be quiet," 
and offered few incentives to poetry. Byron's brief life 
was passed in an age which, perhaps on account of its 
outer excitements, proved a mighty nursing mother to 
poets. Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey were 
from fifteen to twenty years his senior; Shelley and 
Keats were a few years younger. Among these men 
of genius, Byron expressed most clearly, if not most 
deeply, the passions of contemporary Europe. "It is 
he/' says the Danish critic Georg Brandes, "who sets 
the final and decisive stamp on the poetic literature of 
the age." 

Byron has well been called "a revolutionary aristo- 
crat." He was of an ancient line; several of his 
predecessors had led violent and disorderly lives. The 
child was born lame, and although he was always of 
remarkable personal beauty, this defect embittered his 
whole life. His mother, a woman of ungoverned pas- 
sions, alternately petted and abused him. She encour- 
aged him in pride of rank; when the little boy was 
told that he had succeeded to a title, he was so moved 

193 



194 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

and excited that he burst into tears. With the title 
went the estate of ISTewstead Abbey; and Byron, when 
he was ten years old, left Scotland, his early home, for 
England. Here he received his education, first at the 
public school of Harrow, then at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge. He was a careless though clever student, an 
omnivorous reader, a lover of sport and a singularly 
ardent friend; but his tastes were wild. In 1808 he 
received the honorary title of M. A. from his university. 

While an undergraduate Byron had printed two little 
volumes of verse, the second of which, Hours of Idle- 
ness, fell into the hands of Lord Brougham, who treated 
it severely in The Edinburgh Review, Byron was 
roused to anger, and a year later took his revenge in 
the satirical poem English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 
which first revealed his literary power. About the 
same time he came of age and took his seat in the 
House of Lords. Presently, however, he was seized 
with the impulse to travel, and betook himself with a 
friend to the Continent, where he spent two years, visit- 
ing many countries, some of them, like Sardinia, Tur- 
key, and Greece, unfamiliar enough to satisfy his rest- 
less passion for romantic adventure. He returned to 
England in 1811 with a number of satires, which he 
valued, and a poetic record of his travels in the Spen- 
serian stanza, of which he seems to have thought lightly. 
But this record, published under the title Childe 
Harold, fascinated the English public; and, to use 
Byron's own well-known phrase, he awoke one morn- 
ing and found himself famous. . 

Byron now became for a time the idol of English 
society. His genius was in its first fervor, and he 



GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 195 

poured from the press a series of metrical romances: 
The Waltz, The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The 
Corsair, Lara, The Siege of Corinth, and Parisina. 
These vivid tales benefited English literature in more 
ways than one, for they quite eclipsed the spirited but 
less highly colored work of Scott in the same vein, and 
thus led indirectly to the writing of The Waverley 
Novels. 

In a few years sunshine changed to storm. Byron 
was a man of unregulated impulses. He had married 
in 1815 an English girl, Miss Milbanke. A year later 
she left him, and all England took her side in the 
quarrel. Byron, previously so flattered, became the ob- 
ject of universal .execration and abuse. In a mood of 
smarting pride and rage, he left England, never to re- 
turn. Again he sought relief in travel: spent some 
time on the lovely Lake of Geneva, where his sorrows 
were partially soothed by the inspiration of Alpine 
scenery and the gentle fellowship of the most ethereal 
of English poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley: and finally 
settled in Venice. During these later years of his life, 
his genius found expression in a long series of poems. 
Meantime, Byron became intensely interested in the 
political agitation going on all over Europe. His 
sympathies were always with the oppressed: his maiden 
speech in the British Parliament had been in favor of 
the striking weavers of Nottingham. But English 
methods had proved too tame for the taste of a man who 
wrote contemptuously: "I have simplified my politics 
io an utter detestation of all existing governments." 
Now he flung himself with energy into revolutionary 
movements on the Continent and joined the Society 



196 SHOKTER ENGLISH POEMS 

of the Carbonari, who in Italy were conspiring against 
the hated Austrian rule. His best poems are full of 
ardor for freedom, and he described what seemed to him 
the situation of his day when he wrote: 

Yet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying, 
Streams like a thunder cloud against the wind. 

The period immediately following the battle of 
Waterloo was deeply discouraging to all friends of lib- 
erty, and it was truly against the prevailing wind that 
the banner of freedom had to float. A monarchial re- 
action had set in and the Continental courts of Kussia, 
Austria, and Prussia had formed in 1815 what they 
called a "Holy Alliance" for the repression of liberal and 
revolutionary movements. Such movements, however, 
flourish in persecution. Byron, in the nineteenth 
stanza of the third canto of Childe Harold asks bitterly 
whether the despotism of Napoleon had been overthrown 
in vain, — 

Is Earth more free? 

Did nations combat to make One submit; 

Or league to teach all kings due sovereignty? 

What! Shall reviving Thraldom again be 

The patched-up idol of enlightened days? 

Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we 

Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze 

And servile knees to thrones? 

But Byron not only wrote and conspired: he proved 
his earnestness by his death. The Greek war of inde- 
pendence against Turkey, which broke out in 1822, ap- 
pealed to all lovers of "The Glory that was Greece." 
We hear musical echoes of the struggle in Shelley's 



GEOEGE GOEDON, LOED BYEON" 197 

drama, Hellas. Byron equipped a ship at his own ex- 
pense and sailed for the scene. In Greece his patience, 
sagacity, and courage won general admiration. There 
was talk of making him king. But his death put an end 
to all such plans. He died of a fever at Missolonghi, in 
1824, — a mart/yr to the cause of that freedom he had 
sung. He was thirty-six years old. Much in his life had 
been reckless and wrong, but his last months, as well as 
the nobler phases of his work, went far to make atone- 
ment. 

II. 

Until lately Byron had the greatest reputation in 
Europe of any English poet since Shakespeare. Prob- 
ably this is still true, although the Continental peoples 
are now waking to the value of Wordsworth and Shel- 
ley. Byron's great contemporary fame may be due to 
the fact that he was neither behind his age, as a formal- 
ist is likely to be, nor in advance of it, as often happens 
to an idealist. He expressed it exactly, and it hailed 
the expression with rapture. As Brandes says, "The 
legions of the fugitives, the banished, the oppressed, the 
conspirators of every nation, kept their eyes fixed upon 
the one man who, among the universal debasement of 
intelligences and characters, stood upright. He made 
himself the mouthpiece of the dumb revolutionary in- 
dignation which was seething in the breasts of the best 
friends and lovers of liberty in Europe." 

Byron's poems fall into clear divisions. They com- 
prise a number of lyrics ; the group of metrical romances, 
the work of his youth; the fine poem of travel, in 
Spenserian stanzas, Childe Harold; lyrical dramas, of 
which the best are Manfred and Cain; other dramas, 



198 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

including Marino Faliero and The Two Foscari; a 
group of satires, of which The Vision of Judgment is 
the finest; and finally, an unfinished epic, half roman- 
tic, half satirical in spirit, which is generally admitted 
to be his masterpiece, Don Juan. 

The varying types of his work are the expression of 
a rich nature subject to many experiences. Yet through 
them all we see one persistent impulse. It is the im- 
pulse to escape from civilization, which seemed to him, 
as to many fine spirits in those days of the post-Na- 
poleonic reaction, hopelessly repressive to lovers of free- 
dom. In his metrical romances Byron seeks to escape 
the conventionalities that galled him by dwelling on 
romantic tales of life among primitive peoples and in 
remote lands. Childe Harold records his quest for 
freedom and healing in another fashion, through com- 
munion with nature and with the human past. Iri 
Manfred and Cain the poet expressed the pure spirit of 
revolt, and the endeavor to flee the galling bonds of 
law and order by retreat within the recesses of an un- 
tamed spirit and by an attitude of proud defiance. 
Finally, in Don Juan, Byron, weary of all these methods, 
and pursued, to use Wordsworth's phrase, fC by a sense 
deathlike, of treacherous desertion, felt in that last place 
of refuge, his own soul," gave up the attempt to escape 
from the world he despised, and abandoned himself to it 
with sneering laughter. Here, where the romantic and 
the satiric strains in his genius flow at last together, we 
have the most distinctive and splendid expression of 
his genius. 

In all these different forms he showed the power "to 
exhibit, with all the force of life, a world that had 



GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 199 

broken loose from its moorings." * Through his poems 
moves one gloomy figure, "lord of himself, that heri- 
tage of woe," in whose embittered reflection we catch 
the accents of Byron himself. Matthew Arnold asks : 

What boots it now that Byron bore, 
With haughty scorn that mocked the smart, 
Through Europe to the Aetolian shore, 
The pageant of his bleeding heart? 
That thousands counted every groan, 
And England made his woe her own? 

It matters a great deal, for this "pageant" is the 
pageant of the romantic revolt; it is the truest expres- 
sion in letters of the colossal egotism born of the 
Eevolution. And if the next age was, with Carlyle 
in Sartor Eesartus, scornfully to repudiate the mood, 
and to abandon "writing Satanic poetry" as an escape 
from the torture of the soul, the better way would hardly 
have been found had not Byron exhausted the possibil- 
ities of his own way. "There is no better proof of the 
enormous force of Byron's genius," says Lord Morley 
in his brilliant essay on the poet, "than that it was able 
to produce so fine an expression from elements so in- 
trinsically unfavorable to high poetry as doubt, denial, 
antagonism, and weariness. Bare rebellion can not en- 
dure, and no succession of generations can continue to 
nourish themselves on the poetry of complaint and the 
idealization of revolt." 

There are positive qualities also in Byron's poetry, 
and it is those which today give it a more than historic 
importance. What are these qualities? First, his gift 
of looking straight at life. Such passages as the famous 

1 John Morley. 



200 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

account of the battle of Waterloo, in the third canto 
of Childe Harold, and all the well-known descriptions 
of natural beauty and of the great monuments of the 
past, attest Byron's sense for reality. He moves in the 
world of facts, instead of in that world of dreams 
inhabited by some of his contemporaries. Dreams are 
good in their way, but facts are good also. Again, 
Byron is capable of a noble enthusiasm and a contagious 
ardor. Our selections show how swiftly and justly he 
was moved by the more obviously heroic in human life, 
by the charm of Nature, by the significance of history. 
Even when he is most cynical his poetry yields ample 
evidences of a perverted power of direct and lofty feel- 
ing. One must also note his poetic equipment. Of the 
two qualities of good metre, movement and grace, he 
has been said to possess the first perfectly; nor is the 
second absent, though it is less marked. His impetuous 
rhythms, though often lacking in fineness, or even in 
accuracy, — for Byron's ear was not perfect,- — are admir- 
able for the freedom of their force and flow. Then we 
must do justice to Byron's intellectual power, which 
shows itself, not in his dealing with abstract themes, 
— "The moment he reflects he is a child," says Goethe, — 
but in his keen insight into human nature and in a 
sort of glorified common sense. His brilliant wit and 
satire are enough in themselves to place him among 
great English writers. The union of this satirical wit, 
by which he is allied to the school of Pope, with the 
adventurous temper and quick emotion that mark him 
as a contemporary of the great romanticists, gives the 
distinctive quality to his poetry. And, finally, we care 
for Byron on account of a true and manly sincerity. 



GEOEGE GOEDON,LOED BYEON 201 

This sincerity is curiously mingled with a good deal 
of affectation : often we feel that Byron is posing. But 
whenever he escapes from irritating self-consciousness 
and writes out of his heart, as in some of his lyrics, we 
know that we are listening to a great poet. Some people 
will always find a more intimate joy in the quiet gospel 
and delicate metres of Wordsworth; others will prefer 
to soar aloft with Shelley into that fair region "where 
music and moonlight and feeling are one." But the poet 
of Harold and Manfred and Don Juan will always hold 
his own beside these spirits of a differing greatness : for 
he is not only the chief voice of a past epoch, he is also at 
his beat a great interpreter of permanent realities. 

III. 

The selections from Byron presented in this book are 
on the whole in his romantic, not in his satiric, man- 
ner. The Prisoner of Chillon and the third canto of 
Cliilde Harold were written in the spring of 1816, 
while the poet was living with Shelley on the shores of 
the lovely Lake of G-eneva, — "clear, placid Leman." The 
fourth canto of Cliilde Harold was written just a year 
later, in Italy. 

The serious Byron is seen at his best in these ex- 
tracts. The Prisoner of Chillon may be classed in a 
way with his long series of metrical romances. But it 
is superior to nearly all of them in the dignity of its 
subject, in true emotion, in the beauty of its lyrical 
movement. Byron knew little in detail concerning the 
life of the not wholly attractive patriot in whose person 
he writes, and the poem is, as he himself calls it, "a 
fable." But it is a fable in which a noble sympathy with 



202 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

all who suffer for the cause of freedom has quickened 
the poet's imagination to a white heat. 

The selections from Childe Harold also have been 
applauded and learned by heart by every generation 
since they were written. Indeed, the traveler in 
Europe encounters nearly all the most famous stanzas 
cut up into fragmentary quotations in his guide 
books; and he may be tempted to feel that the poet 
has given us a mere poetic gazetteer. But this would 
be doing him a great injustice. The value of the 
poem is not in mere description ; close analysis reveals 
that there is comparatively little direct description 
in it. It is fine poetry because it is personal. It 
records the impact of much that is most beautiful in 
nature and most interesting in the human past, upon 
a fiery and responsive though not faultless spirit, and 
upon a keen intelligence. 

Byron published the first two cantos of the poem in 
1809, on his return from his first trip in Europe. He 
tells the story of his wanderings, but instead of using 
the first person he shields himself behind an imaginary 
hero, whom the public insisted on identifying with the 
poet himself. ' ' Childe " is a title used in old romances 
for a young man, usually of noble birth. These first 
cantos are in every way inferior to the second two, 
which were written when the poet was seven and eight 
years older, and had passed through great and real 
sorrow. In the later cantos, Childe Harold virtually 
disappears, and nobody misses him. The poem be- 
comes a direct transcript of Byron's experiences. 

In Canto III, the most famous lines are those in- 
cluding the meditation on the battle of Waterloo. 



GEOEGE GOEDON, LOED BYEON 203 

Byron visited the battlefield within a year after the 
battle, and his stately stanzas thrill with the grandeur 
of the event and the force of his emotion. Other fine 
things in this canto are inspired by the literary asso- 
ciations of the Lake of Geneva and by the sight of a 
thunderstorm among the mountains that surround it. 
The fourth canto is inspired by Italy. It has no 
underlying principle of unity, except such as comes 
from the course of Byron's travels. These begin in 
Venice, to which he devotes twenty-nine stanzas. 
Then, after an excursion to Arqua, where Petrarch 
is buried, he turns southward, and stops at Ferrara, 
where he commemorates Tasso, and is led by medi- 
tation on other Italian poets to the fine passage on 
the wrongs of modern Italy. The forty-eighth to the 
sixty-second stanzas center in Florence, where the gal- 
leries and the Church of Santa Croce claim his chief 
attention. Still southward bound, he pauses in 
Umbria by Lake Thrasymene, but in the seventy- 
eighth stanza reaches Kome, his "City of the Soul," 
to which nearly ninety stanzas are dedicated. 
Throughout the poem his own sufferings have again 
and again pressed into utterance; now toward the 
end he pauses to glance at a contemporary public 
sorrow in England, — the death of the Princess Char- 
lotte, — and then, with a right instinct for contrast 
and relief, closes the long survey of historic events 
and monuments by the great concluding stanzas, — 
the one hundred seventy-fifth to the end, — which 
transport us from the record of the human past and 
the experience of the human present to the solitudes of 
nature and the tameless reaches of the tumultuous sea. 



204 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 






Byron is only one among many English writers to 
feel the influence of the "woman-country" of Brown- 
ing's love. The effect of Italy on English letters can 
indeed hardly be over-estimated. Hither came Chaucer 
in the fourteenth century, Sidney in the sixteenth, Mil- 
ton in the seventeenth, to be quickened at her sacred 
fires. From Italy, the drama of the time of Shakespeare 
and the romantic epic of the same period drew models 
and themes. In the eighteenth century France took 
the lead, and French fashions ruled supreme in thought 
and letters. The nineteenth century was to turn to 
Italy again, and the poetry of Byron and Shelley wit- 
nesses to the revival of her spell. It is felt in different 
ways by Euskin, by Swinburne, by both the Brownings, 
by Eossetti, and by many later men; and we may find 
evidence of the inexhaustible wealth of that fair land 
in the fact that no two of these writers have found the 
same treasures there. 

Byron's Italy is a rather obvious one. It is the coun- 
try of that classic antiquity in the knowledge of which 
every English schoolboy was drilled, and of the art and 
literature of the High Eenaissance, familiar in those 
days as a matter of course to every man of taste. To 
much that is now most cherished in Italy he was blind. 
The Italy of the middle ages had no charms for him. 
He never noticed the little walled mediaeval towns 
that from their hilltops fascinate the modern traveler. 
One can search the canto in vain for a mention of the 
great saints, a St. Francis or a St. Catherine, who im- 
part such glory to the land. His mention of Dante is 
perfunctory, and would not prove that he had ever read 
a line of the poet. In art, his taste resembles that of 



GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 205 

Shelley, who turned faint with ecstasy over the vulgar 
paintings of Guido Beni, and never gave a glance to 
the great work of- Botticelli, of Giotto, or of the earlier 
artists; but we can hardly imagine Shelley visiting 
the Medici Chapel and never mentioning those superb 
statues of Michael Angelo that rest solemnly upon the 
tombs, awaiting the word of life. Byron not only 
shared the limitations of the taste of his time, — he 
evinces no natural affinity for much that is noblest in 
the Old World. 

But if there are certain blind spots in his vision, 
how much he sees ! One needs a wide knowledge of 
history in Eoman and Eenaissance days to appreciate 
fully the force of the emotions that sway him. Notes 
can give the essential information in scattered items, but 
the student should be quickened to desire more intimate 
understanding. Above all, he should realize keenly the 
situation of modern Italy when Byron wrote. Supreme 
among nations for the glory of her record, she lay, en- 
slaved and all but supine, at the feet of the Austrian 
tyrant, the days of her liberation from the yoke and 
her union as a people still almost half a century in the 
future. But in her sleep she stirred, and Byron had 
identified himself with the forces that sought to awaken 
her. This underlying situation lends dramatic poign- 
ancy to his high praise and his enthusiastic devotion, 
and enables us to understand the ring of personal feel- 
ing in such stanzas as the twenty-sixth, forty-second, 
and forty-seventh. 

Childe Harold is written in the stanza used by Spenser 
in his romantic epic, The Faery Queen. This stanza 
consists of eight lines of iambic pentameter, the same 



206 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

line as that used by Shakespeare in his dramas and by 
Milton in Paradise Lost, followed by an Alexandrine, 
or a line composed of six feet instead of five. It is 
the most dignified stanza in English verse and probably 
the one best adapted to description and reflection. 
Byron's handling of it should be compared with that 
of Shelley in his Revolt of Islam and A&onais, and that 
of Keats, in The Eve of St. Agnes. Byron himself 
gets very different effects from the stanza at different 
times. In the first two cantos he writes with dignified 
and leisurely grace; in the last two, he allows himself 
a more broken and irregular movement. The impetu- 
ous flow of his thought disregards ends, not only of 
lines but of stanzas, and gives an impression of master- 
ful ease. 



SONNET ON CHILLON 

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind ! 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty ! thou art, 
For there thy habitation is the heart — 

The heart, which love of thee alone can bind ; 

And when thy sons to fetters are consign'a — 
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 

And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 

Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place, 

And thy sad floor an altar — for 'twas trod, 

Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 

By Bonnivard ! May none those marks efface ! 
For they appeal from tyranny to God. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON. 



My hair is gray, but not with years, 
Nor grew it white 
In a single night, 
As men's have grown from sudden fears; 
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, 

But rusted with a vile repose, 
For they have been a dungeon's spoil, 
And mine has been the fate of those 
To whom the goodly earth and air 
Are banned, and barred — forbidden fare; 
But this was for my father's faith 
I suffered chains and courted death; 
That father perished at the stake 
207 



208 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

For tenets he would not forsake; 

5 And for the same his lineal race 

In darkness found a dwelling place; 
We were seven — who now are one, 

Six in youth, and one in age, 
Finished as they had begun, 

j Proud of Persecution's rage; 

One in fire, and two in field, 
Their belief with blood have sealed: 
Dying as their father died, 
For the God their foes denied; — 

5 Three were in a dungeon cast, 

Of whom this wreck is left the last. 



There are seven pillars of Gothic mould 
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, 
There are seven columns massy and gray,, 
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 
A sunbeam which hath lost its way, 
And through the crevice and the cleft 
Of the thick wall is fallen and left: 
Creeping o'er the floor so damp, 
Like a marsh's meteor lamp : 
And in each pillar there is a ring, 

And in each ring there is a chain; 
That iron is a cankering thing, 

For in these limbs its teeth remain, 
With marks that will not wear away 
Till I have done with this new day, 
Which now is painful to these eyes, 
Which have not seen the sun so rise 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON. 209 

For years — I cannot count them o'er, 
I lost their long and heavy score 
When my last brother drooped and died, 
And I lay living by his side. 

ill. 

They chained us each to a column stone, 

And we were three — yet, each alone; 

"We could not move a single pace, 

We could not see each other's face, 

But with that pale and livid light 

That made us strangers in our sight: 

And thus together— yet apart, 

Fettered in hand, but joined in heart; 

J T was still some solace, in the dearth 

Of the pure elements of earth, 

To hearken to each other's speech, 

And each turn comforter to each 

With some new hope or legend old, 

Or song heroically bold; 

But even these at length grew cold. 

Our voices took a dreary tone, 

An echo of the dungeon -stone, 

A grating sound — not full and free 

As they of yore were wont to be; 

It might be fancy — but to me 
They never sounded like our own. 

IV. 

I was the eldest of the three, 
And to uphold and cheer the rest 
I ought to do— and did my best — 



210 



SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 



And each did well in his degree. 

The youngest, whom my father loved, 
Because our mother's brow was given 
To him — with eyes as blue as heaven, 

For him my soul was sorely moved: 
And truly might it be distressed 
To see such bird in such a nest; 
For he was beautiful as day — 

(When day was beautiful to me 

As to young eagles being free)-^ 

A polar day, which will not see 
A sunset till its summer's gone, 

Its sleepless summer of long light, 
The snow-clad offspring of the sun : 

And thus he was as pure and bright, 
And in his natural spirit gay, 
With tears for naught but others' ills, 
And then they flowed like mountain rills, 
Unless he could assuage the woe 
Which he abhorred to view below. • 



too 



The other was as pure of mind, 
But formed to combat with his kind ; 
Strong in his frame, and of a mood 
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, 
And perished in the foremost rank 

With joy: — but not in chains to pine: 
His spirit withered with their clank, 
I saw it silently decline — 
And so perchance in sooth did mine : 
But yet I forced it on to cheer 



THE PEISONEE OF CHILLON 211 

Those relics of a home so dear. 
He was a hunter of the hills, 

Had followed there the deer and wolf; 

To him this dungeon was a gulf, 
And fettered feet the worst of ills. 

VI. 

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls : 
A thousand feet in depth below 
Its massy waters meet and flow; 
Thus much the fathom-line was sent 
From Chillon's snow-white battlement, 

Which round about the wave inthrals : 
A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave. 
Below the surface of the lake 
The dark vault lies wherein we lay, 
We heard it ripple night and day: 

Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; 
And I have felt the winter's spray 
Wash through the bars when winds were high 
And wanton in the happy sky; 

And then the very rock hath rocked, 

And I have felt it shake, unshocked, 
Because I could have smiled to see 
The death that would have set me free. 

VII. 

I said my nearer brother pined, 
I said his mighty heart declined, 
He loathed and put away his food; 
It was not that 't was coarse and rude, 



212 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

130 For we were used to hunter's fare, 
And for the like had little care : 
The milk drawn from the mountain goat 
Was changed for water from the moat, 
Our bread was such as captive's tears 

135 Have moistened many a thousand years, 
Since man first pent his fellow men 
Like brutes within an iron den; 
But what were these to us or him? 
These wasted not his heart or limb; 

140 My brother's soul was of that mould 
Which in a palace had grown cold, 
Had his free breathing been denied 
The range of the steep mountain's side. 
But why delay the truth? — he died. 

145 I saw, and could not hold his head, 

Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead, — 
Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, 
To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. 
He died, and they unlocked his chain, 

150 And scooped for him a shallow grave 
Even from the cold earth of our cave. 
I begged them, as a boon, to lay 
His corse in dust whereon the day 
Might shine — it was a foolish thought, 

155 But then within my brain it wrought, 
That even in death his freeborn breast 
In such a dungeon could not rest. 
I might have spared my idle prayer — 
They coldly laughed, and laid him there: 

165 The flat and turfless earth above 
The being we so much did love; 









THE PEISONER OF CHILLON 213 

His empty chain above it leant, 
Such, murder's fitting monument ! 



But he, the favorite and the flower, 
Most cherished since his natal hour, 
His mother's image in fair face, 
The infant love of all his. race, 
His martyred father's dearest thought. 
My latest care, for whom I sought 
To hoard my life, that his might be 
Less wretched now, and one day free; 
He, too, who yet had held untired 
A spirit natural or inspired — 
He, too, was struck, and day by day 
Was withered on the stalk away. 
Oh, God! it is a fearful thing 
To see the human soul take wing 
In any shape, in any mood: — 
I've seen it rushing forth in blood, 
I've seen it on the breaking ocean 
Strive with a swol'n convulsive motion,. 
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed 
Of Sin delirious with its dread: 
But these were horrors — this was woe 
Unmixed with such — but sure and slow j 
He faded, and so calm and meek, 
So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 
So tearless, yet so tender — kind, 
And grieved for those he left behind;, 
Withal the while a cheek whose bloom 
Was as a mockery of the tomb, 



214 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Whose tints as gently sunk away 
As a departing rainbow's ray — ' 
An eye of most transparent light, 

195 That almost made the dungeon bright, 
And net a word of murmur, not 
A groan o'er his untimely lot, — 
A little talk of better days, 
A little hope my own to raise, 

200 For I was sunk in silence — lost 
In this last loss, of all the most; 
And then the sighs he would suppress 
Of fainting nature's feebleness, 
More slowly drawn, grew less and less: 

205 I listened, but I could not hear — 
I called, for I was wild with fear ; 
I knew "t was hopeless, but my dread 
Would not be thus admonished; 
I called, and thought I heard a sound — 

zio I burst my chain with one strong bound, 
And rushed to him: — I found him not, 
I only stirred in this black spot, 
I only lived — I only drew 
The accursed breath of dungeon-dew; 

215 The last, the sole, the dearest link 

Between me and the eternal brink, 
Which bound me to my failing race, 
Was broken in this fatal place. 
One on the earth, and one beneath — 

220 My brothers — both had ceased to breathe. 
I took that hand which lay so still, 
Alas ! my own was full as chill ; 
I had not strength to stir, or strive, 



THE PKISONEK OF CHILLON 215 

But felt that I was still alive — 
A frantic feeling, when we know 
That what we love shall ne'er be so. 

I know not why 

I could not die, 
I had no earthly hope — but faith, 
And that forbade a selfish death. 

IX. 

What next befell me then and there 

I know not well — I never knew — 
First came the loss of light, and air, 

And then of darkness too: 
I had no thought, no feeling — none — 
Among the stones I stood a stone, 
And was, scarce conscious what I wist, 
As shrubless crags within the mist; 
For all was blank, and bleak, and gray; 
It was not night — it was not day, 
It was not even the dungeon-light, 
So hateful to my heavy sight, 
But vacancy absorbing space, 
And fixedness, without a place; 
There were no stars, no earth, no time, 
No check, no change, no good, no crime, 
But silence, and a stirless breath 
Which neither was of life nor death; 
A sea of stagnant idleness, 
Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! 

x. 

A light broke in upon my brain, — 
It was the carol of a bird ; 



216 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

It ceased, and then it came again, 
The sweetest song ear ever heard, 

255 And mine was thankful till my eyes 
Ean over with the glad surprise, 
And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery; 
But then by dull degrees came back 

260 My senses to their wonted track; 

I saw the dungeon walls and floor 
Close slowly round me as before, 
I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done, 

265 But through the crevice where it came 

That bird was perched, as fond and tame, 

And tamer than upon the tree; 
A lovely bird, with azure wings, 
And song that said a thousand things, 

270 And seemed to say them all for me ! 

I never saw its like before, 
I ne'er shall see its likeness more: 
It seemed like me to want a mate, 
But was not half so desolate, 

275 And it was come to love me when 
None lived to love me so again, 
And cheering from my dungeon's brink, 
Had brought me back to feel and think. 
I know not if it late were free, 

280 Or broke its cage to perch on mine, 

But knowing well captivity, 

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine! 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 
A visitant from Paradise; 






THE PEISONER OF CHILLON 217 

For — Heaven forgive that thought! the while 

Which made me both to weep and smile; 

I sometimes deemed that it might be 

My brother's soul come down to me; 

But then at last away it flew, 

And then 't was mortal well I knew, 

For he would never thus have flown, 

And left me twice so doubly lone, — 

Lone — as the corse within its shroud, 

Lone — as a solitary cloud, 

A single cloud on a sunny day, 
While all the rest of heaven is clear, 
A frown upon the atmosphere, 
That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue, and earth is gay. 

XI. 

A kind of change came in my fate, 
My keepers grew compassionate; 
I know not what had made them so, 
They were inured to sights of woe, 
But so it was: — my broken chain 
With links unfastened did remain, 
And it was liberty to stride 
Along my cell from side to side, 
And up and down, and then athwart, 
And tread it over every part; 
And round the pillars one by one, 
Eeturning where my walk begun, 
Avoiding only, as I trod, 
My brothers' graves without a sod; 
For if I thought with heedless tread 



218 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

i My step profaned their lowly bed, 
My breath came gaspingly and thick, 
And my crushed heart fell blind and sick. 

XII. 

I made a footing in the wall, 

It was not therefrom to escape, 
For I had buried one and all 

Who loved me in a human shape; 
And the whole earth would henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me: 
No child, no sire, no kin had I, 
No partner in my misery; 
I thought of this, and I was glad, 
For thought of them had made me mad; 
But I was curious to ascend 
To my barred windows, and to bend 
Once more, upon the mountains high, 
The quiet of a loving eye. 



I saw them — and they were the same, 
They were not changed like me in frame; 
I saw their thousand years of snow 
On high — their wide long lake below, 
And the blue Ehone in fullest flow; 
I heard the torrents leap and gush 
O'er channelled rock and broken bush; 
I saw the white-walled distant town, 
And whiter sails go skimming down; 
And then there was a little isle, 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 219 

Which in my very face did smile, 

The only one in view; 
A small green isle, it seemed no more, 
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 
But in it there were three tall trees, 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, 
And by it there were waters flowing, 
And on it there were young flowers growing, 

Of gentle breath and hue. 
The fish swam by the castle wall, 
And they seemed joyous each and all; 
The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methought he never flew so fast 
As then to me he seemed to fly, 
And then new tears came in my eye, 
And I felt troubled — and would fain 
I had not left my recent chain; 
And when I did descend again, 
The darkness of my dim abode 
Fell on me as a heavy load ; 
It was as is a new-dug grave, 
Closing o'er one we sought to save, — 
And yet my glance, too much oppressed, 
Had almost need of such a rest. 

xrv. 

It might be months, or years, or days, 

I kept no count — I took no note, 
I had no hope my eyes to raise, 

And clear them of their dreary mote; 
At last men came to set me free, 

I asked not why, and recked not where ; 



220 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

It was at length the same to me, 
Fettered or fetterless to be, 
I learned to love despair. 
And thus when they appeared at last, 
And all my bonds aside were cast, 
These heavy walls to me had grown 
A hermitage — and all my own ! 
And half I felt as they were come 
To tear me from a second home: 
With spiders I had friendship made, 
And watched them in their sullen trade, 
Had seen the mice by moonlight play, 
And why should I feel less than they? 
We were all inmates of one place, 
And I, the monarch of each race, 
Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell! 
In quiet we had learned to dwell — . 
My very chains and I grew friends, 
So much a long communion tends 
To make us what we are : — even I 
Eegained my freedom with a sigh. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 

CANTO III. 

"Afin que cette application vous forgat de penser a autre 
chose ; il n'y a en verite de remede que celui-la et le temps. ' ' — 
Lettre du Roi de Prusse a D'Alembert, Sept. 7, 1776. 

I. 

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child! 
Ada ! sole daughter of my house and heart ? 
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, 
And then we parted, — not as now we part, 
But with a hope. — 

Awaking with a start, 
The waters heave around me ; and on high 
The winds lift up their voices : I depart, 
Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, 
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad 
mine eye. 

n. 
Once more upon the waters! yet once more! 
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
That knows his rider. Welcome, to the roar! 
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead! 
Though the strain 'd mast should quiver as a reed, 
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, 
Still must I on; for I am as a weed, 
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail 
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath 
prevail. 

221 



222 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

m. 

In my youth's summer I did sing of One, 
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind; 
Again I seize the theme, then but begun, 
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind 
Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find 
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, 
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, 
O'er which all heavily the journeying years 
Plod the last sands of life, — where not a flower 
appears. 

IV. 

Since my young days of passion — joy, or pain, 
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string, 
And both may jar : it may be, that in vain 
I would essay as I have sung to sing. 
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling 
So that it wean me from the weary dream 
Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling 
Forgetfulness around me — it shall seem 
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. 

v. 

He, who grown aged in this world of woe, 
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, 
So that no wonder waits him ; nor below 
Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, 
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife 
Of silent sharp endurance : he can tell 
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife 
With airy images, and shapes which dwell 
Still unimpair'd, though old, in the soul's haunted cell. 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE 223 

VI. 
'Tis to create, and in creating live 
A being more intense, that we endow 
With form our fancy, gaining as we give 
The life we image, even as I do now. 
What am I ? Nothing : but not so art thou, 
Soul of my thought ! with whom I traverse earth, 
Invisible but gazing, as I glow 
Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, 
And feeling still with thee in my crush 'd feelings' 
dearth. 

VII. 

Yet must I think less wildly: — I have thought 
Too long and darkly, till my brain became, 
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, 
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame : 
And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, 
My springs of life were poison 'd. 'Tis too late! 
Yet am I changed; though still enough the same 
In strength to bear what time can not abate, 
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate. 

vm. 
Something too much of this : — but now 'tis past, 
And the spell closes with its silent seal. 
Long absent Harold re-appears at last; 
He of the breast which fain no more would feel, 
Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er 

heal; 
Yet Time, who changes all, had alter 'd him 
In soul and aspect as in age: years steal 
Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; 
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. 



224 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

IX. 

His had been quaff 'd too quickly, and he found 
The dregs were wormwood: but he fill'd again, 
And from a purer fount, on holier ground, 
And deemed its spring perpetual ; but in vain ! 
Still round him clung invisibly a chain 
Which gall 'd for ever, fettering though unseen, 
And heavy though it clank 'd not; worn with pain, 
Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, 

Entering with every step he took through many a 
scene. 

x. 
Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd 
Again in fancied safety with his kind, 
And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd 
And sheath 'd with an invulnerable mind, 
That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind; 
And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand 
Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find 
Fit speculation; such as in strange land 

He found in wonder-works of God and Nature 's hand. 

XI. 

But who can view the ripen 'd rose, nor seek 
To wear it? who can curiously behold 
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek, 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ? 
Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold 
The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb? 
Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd 
On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, 
Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 225 

XII. 

But soon he knew himself the most unfit 
Of men to herd with Man ; with whom he held 
Little in common; untaught to submit 
His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd 
In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompell'd, 
He would not yield dominion of his mind 
To spirits against whom his own rebell'd; 
Proud though in desolation; which could find 
A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. 

XIII. 

Where rose the mountains, there to him were 

friends ; 
Where roll 'd the ocean, thereon was his home ; 
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, 
He had the passion and the power to roam ; 
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, 
Were unto him companionship ; they spake 
A mutual language, clearer than the tome 
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake 
For Nature's pages glass 'd by sunbeams on the lake. 

XIV. 

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, 
Till he had peopled them with beings bright 
As their own beams ; and earth, and earth-born jars, 
And human frailties, were forgotten quite : 
Could he have kept his spirit to that flight 
He had been happy ; but this clay will sink 
Its spark immortal, envying it the light 
To which it mounts, as if to break the link 
That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its 
brink. 



226 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

XV. 

But in Man's dwellings lie became a thing 
Eestless and worn, and stern and wearisome, 
Droop 'd as a wild-born falcon with dipt wing, 
To whom the boundless air alone were home : 
Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, 
As eagerly the barr'd up bird will beat 
His breast and beak against his wiry dome 
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat 
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. 

XVI. 

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, 

"With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom ; 

The very knowledge that he lived in vain, 

That all was over on this side the tomb, 

Had made Despair a smilingness assume, 

Which, though 'twere wild, — as on the plundered 

wreck, 
When mariners would madly meet their doom 
With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, — 
Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. 

XVII. 

Stop ! — for thy tread is on an Empire 's dust ! 
An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below! 
Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust? 
Nor column trophied for triumphal show? 
None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, 
As the ground was before, thus let it be; — 
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow ! 
And is this all the world has gained by thee, 
Thou first and last of fields ! king-making Victory ? 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 227 



And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, 
The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo; 
How in an hour the power which gave annuls 
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too ! 
In "pride of place" here last the eagle flew, 
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain, 
Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through ; 
Ambitions life and labors all were vain ; 
He wears the shatter 'd links of the world's broken 
chain. 

XIX. 

Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit 

And foam in fetters; — but is Earth more free? 

Did nations combat to make One submit; 

Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty? 

What! shall reviving Thraldom again be 

The patch 'd-up idol of enlighten 'd days? 

Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we 

Pay the Wolf homage ? proffering lowly gaze 

And servile knees to thrones? No; prove before ye 

praise ! 

xx. 

If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more! 
In vain fair cheeks were furrow 'd with hot tears 
For Europe's flowers long rooted up before 
The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years 
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, 
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord 
Of roused-up millions: all that most endears 
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword 
Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord. 






i 



228 SHOETEB ENGLISH POEMS 

XXI. 

There was a sound of revelry by night, 
And Belgium's capital had gather 'd then 
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men 
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising 
knell ! 

XXII. 

Did ye not hear it? — No; 'twas but the wind 
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street; 
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; 
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet^ 
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — 
But, hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat; 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! 
Arm! Arm! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar! 

XXIII. 

Within a window 'd niche of that high hall 
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear 
That sound the first amidst the festival, 
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; 
And when they smiled because he deem'd it near, 
His heart more truly knew that peal too well 
Which stretch 'd his father on a bloody bier, 
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell : 
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. 






CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 229 



Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blush 'd at the praise of their own loveliness ; 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne 'er might be repeated ; who could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, . 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could 
rise ! 

XXV. 

And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; 
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 
While throng 'd the citizens with terror dumb, 
Or whispering, with white lips — ' ' The foe ! They 
come ! they come ! ' ' 

XXVI. 

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering " 

rose! 
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills 
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes : — 
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 
Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which fills 
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers 



230 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

With the fierce native daring which instils 
The stirring memory of a thousand years, 
And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's 

ears! 

XXVII. 

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, 
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, 
Over the unreturning brave, — alas! 
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
Of living valor, rolling on the foe 
And burning with high hope shall moulder cold 
and low. 

XXVIII. 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, 
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, 
The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day 
Battle's magnificently-stern array! 
The thunder-clouds close o 'er it, which when rent 
The earth is cover 'd thick with other clay, 
Which her own clay shall cover, heap 'd and pent, 
Rider and horse, — -friend, foe, — in one red burial 
blent ! 

XXIX. 

Their praise is hymn 'd by loftier harps than mine ; 
Yet one I would select from that proud throng, 
Partly because they blend me with his line, 
And partly that I did his sire some wrong, 
And partly that bright names will hallow song ; 






CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE 231 

And his was of the bravest, and when shower 'd 
The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along, 
Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower 'd, 
They reach 'd no nobler breast than thine, young, 
gallant Howard! 

xxx. 

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, 
And mine were nothing, had I snch to give; 
But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, 
Which living waves where thou did'st cease to live, 
And saw around me the wide field revive 
With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring 
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, 
With all her reckless birds upon the wing, 
I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not 
bring. 

XXXI. 

I turn'd to thee, to thousands, of whom each 

And one as all a ghastly gap did make 

In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach 

Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake; 

The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake 

Those whom they thirst for ; though the sound of 

Fame 
May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake 
The fever of vain longing, and the name 
So honor 'd but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. 

XXXII. 

They mourn, but smile at length ; and, smiling, 

mourn : 
The tree will wither long before it fall; 



232 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn ; 
The roof -tree sinks, but moulders on the hall 
In massy hoariness; the ruin'd wall 
Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone; 
The bars survive the captive they enthral; 
The day drags through though storms keep out the 
sun; 
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on: 



Even as a broken mirror, which the glass 
In every fragment multiplies; and makes 
A thousand images of one that was, 
The same, and still the more, the more it breaks ; 
And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, 
Living in shatter 'd guise, and still, and cold, 
And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, 
Yet withers on till all without is old, 
Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. 



There is a very life in our despair, 
Vitality of poison, — a quick root 
Which feeds these deadly branches ; for it were 
As nothing did we die; but Life will suit 
Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit, 
Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore, 
All ashes to the taste : Did man compute 
Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er 
Such hours 'gainst years of life, — say, would he name 
three-score ¥ 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE 233 



The Psalmist number 'd out the years of man: 
They are enough; and if thy tale be true, 
Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span, 
More than enough, thou fatal "Waterloo ! 
Millions of tongues record thee, and anew 
Their children's lips shall echo them, and say — 
"Here, where the sword united nations drew, 
Our countrymen were warring on that day!" 
And this is much, and all which will not pass away. 



There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, 
Whose spirit antithetically mixt 
One moment of the mightiest, and again 
On little objects with like firmness fixt, 
Extreme in all things ! hadst thou been betwixt, 
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been ; 
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st 
Even now to re-assume the imperial mien, 
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the 
scene ! 

XXXVII. 

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! 
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name 
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now 
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, 
Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became 
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert 
A god unto thyself; nor less the same 






234 SHORTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

To the astounded kingdoms all inert, 
Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst 
assert. 

XXXVIII. 

Oh, more or less than man — in high or low, 
Battling with nations, flying from the field ; 
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now 
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield : 
An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild. 
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, 
However deeply in men's spirits skill'd, 
Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, 
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest 
star. 

xxxix. 

Yet well thy soul hath brook 'd the turning tide 
With that untaught innate philosophy, 
Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, 
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. 
When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, 
To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled 
With a sedate and all-enduring eye; — 
When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favorite child, 
He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled. 



Sager than in thy fortunes: for in them 
Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show 
That just habitual scorn, which could contemn 
Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so 
To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 235 

And spurn the instruments thou wert to use 
Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow; 
"lis but a worthless world to win or lose ; 
So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. 



If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, 
Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, 
Such scorn of man had help 'd to brave the shock ; 
But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy 

throne, 
Their admiration thy best weapon shone; 
The part of Philip's son was thine, not then 
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) 
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men; 
For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. 



But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, 
And there hath been thy bane ; there is a fire 
And motion of the soul which will not dwell 
In its own narrow being, but aspire 
Beyond the fitting medium of desire; 
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, 
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire 
Of aught but rest; a fever at the core, 
Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. 

XLIII. 

This makes the madmen who have made men mad 
By their contagion ; Conquerors and Kings, 
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add 



236 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things 
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, 
And are themselves the fools to those they fool; 
Envied, yet how unenviable ! what stings 
Are theirs ! One breast laid open were a school 
Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or 
rule. 

XLIV. 

Their breath is agitation, and their life 
A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, 
And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, 
That should their days, surviving perils past, 
Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast 
With sorrow and supineness, and so die; 
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste 
With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, 
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. 

XLV. 

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find 
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow. 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 
Must look down on the hate of those below. 
Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head, 
And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. 



Away with these ! true Wisdom 's world will be 
Within its own creation, or in thine, 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGEIMAGE 237 

Maternal Nature ! for who teems like thee, 
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine ? 
There Harold gazes on a work divine, 
A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, 
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine, 
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells 
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells. 

XLVII. 

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, 
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd, 
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind, 
Or holding dark communion with the cloud. 
There was a day when they were young and proud, 
Banners on high, and battles pass'd below; 
But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, 
And those which waved are shredless dust ere now, 
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. 

XLVIII. 

Beneath these battlements, within those walls, 
Power dwelt amidst her passions ; in proud state 
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls, 
Doing his evil will, nor less elate 
Than mightier heroes of a longer date. 
What want these outlaws conquerors should have, 
But History's purchased page to call them great? — 
A wider space, an ornamented grave? 
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full 
as brave. 

XLIX. 

In their baronial feuds and single fields, 
What deeds of prowess unrecorded died! 



238 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields, 
With emblems well devised by amorous pride, 
Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide ; 
But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on 
Keen contest and destruction near allied, 
And many a tower for some fair mischief won, 
Saw the discolor 'd Rhine beneath its ruin run. 



But thou, exulting and abounding river! 
Making their waves a blessing as they flow 
Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever 
Could man but leave thy bright creation so, 
Nor its fair promise from the surface mow 
With the sharp scythe of conflict, — then to see 
Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know 
Earth paved like Heaven; and to seem such to me, 
Even now what wants thy stream? — that it should 
Lethe be. 



A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks, 
But these and half their fame have pass'd away, 
And Slaughter heap 'd on high his weltering ranks ; 
Their very graves are gone, and what are they ? 
Thy tide wash'd down the blood of yesterday, 
And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream 
Glass 'd with its dancing light the sunny ray; 
But o'er the blacken 'd memory's blighting dream 
Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they 



CHILDE HAROLD'S FILGRIMAGE 239 

LII. 
Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along, 
Yet not insensibly to all which here 
Awoke the jocund birds to early song 
In glens which might have made even exile dear: 
Though on his brow were graven lines austere, 
And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place 
Of feelings fierier far but less severe, 
Joy was not always absent from his face, 

But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient 
trace. 

Lm. 
Nor was all love shut from him, though his days 
Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. 
It is in vain that we would coldly gaze 
On such as smile upon us ; the heart must 
Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust 
Hath wean 'd it from all worldlings : thus he felt, 
For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust 
In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, 

And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt. 

LIV. 

And he had learn 'd to love, — I know not why, 
For this in such as him seems strange of mood, — • 
The helpless looks of blooming infancy, 
Even in its earliest nurture ; what subdued, 
To change like this, a mind so far imbued 
"With scorn of man, it little boots to know ; 
But thus it was ; and though in solitude 
Small power the nipp 'd affections have to grow, 
In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow. 



240 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

LV. 

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, 
Which unto his was bound by stronger ties 
Than the church links withal; and, though unwed, 
That love was pure, and, far above disguise, 
Had stood the test of mortal enmities 
Still undivided, and cemented more 
By peril, dreaded most in female eyes; 
But this was firm, and from a foreign shore 
Well to that heart might his these absent greetings 
pour! 

1. 

The castled crag of Drachenfels 
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, 
Whose breast of waters broadly swells 
Between the banks which bear the vine, 
And hills all rich with blossom 'd trees, 
And fields which promise corn and wine, 
And scatter 'd cities crowning these, 
Whose far white walls along them shine, 
Have strew 'd a scene, which I should see 
With double joy wert thou with me. 



And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, 
And hands which offer early flowers, 
Walk smiling o'er this paradise; 
Above, the frequent feudal towers 
Through green leaves lift their walls of gray, 
And many a rock which steeply lowers, 
And noble arch in proud decay, 



CHILDE HAKOLD'S PILGEIMAGE 241 

Look o 'er this vale of vintage-bowers ; 
But one thing want these banks of Rhine, — 
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine ! 



I send the lilies given to me ; 
Though long before thy hand they touch, 
I know that they must wither 'd be, 
But yet reject them not as such ; 
For I have cherish 'd them as dear, 
Because they yet may meet thine eye, 
And guide thy soul to mine even here, 
When thou behold 'st them drooping nigh, 
And know'st them gather 'd by the Ehine, 
And offer 'd from my heart to thine ! 



The river nobly foams and flows, 

The charm of this enchanted ground, 

And all its thousand turns disclose 

Some fresher beauty varying round: 

The haughtiest breast its wish might bound 

Through life to dwell delighted here ; 

Nor could on earth a spot be found 

To nature and to me so dear, 

Could thy dear eyes in following mine 

Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine ! 



By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, 
There is a small and simple pyramid, 
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound ; 



242 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid, 

Our enemy's — but let not that forbid 

Honor to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb 

Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's 

lid, 
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom, 
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume. 



Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career, — 
His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes ; 
And fitly may the stranger lingering here 
Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose; 
For he was Freedom 's champion, one of those, 
The few in number, who had not o'erstept 
The charter to chastise which she bestows 
On such as wield her weapons ; he had kept - 
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him 
wept. 

Lvni. 

Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shatter 'd wall 
Black with the miner's blast, upon her height 
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball 
Rebounding idly on her strength did light : 
A tower of victory ! from whence the flight 
Of baffled foes was watch 'd along the plain : 
But Peace destroy 'd what War could never blight, 
And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's 

rain — 
On which the iron shower for years had pour'd in 

vain. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 243 

LIX. 
Adieu to thee, fair Rhine ! How long delighted 
The stranger fain would linger on his way ! 
Thine is a scene alike where souls united 
Or lonely contemplation thus might stray ; 
And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey 
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, 
Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, 
Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, 
Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year. 

LX. 

" Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! 

There can be no farewell to scene like thine ; 

The mind is color 'd by thy every hue ; 

And if reluctantly the eyes resign 

Their cherish 'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! 

'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise ; 

More mighty spots may rise — more glaring shine, 

But none unite in one attaching maze 
The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the glories of old days, 

LXI. 

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom 
Of coming ripeness, the white city 's sheen, 
The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom, 
The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, 
The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been 
In mockery of man 's art ; and these withal 
A race of faces happy as the scene, 
Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, 
Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near 
them fall. 






244 SHOKTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

LXII. 

But these recede. Above me are the Alps, 
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, 
And throned Eternity in icy halls 
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls 
The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow! 
All that expands the spirit, yet appals, 
Gather round these summits, as to show 
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man 
below. 

LXIII. 

But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, 
There is a spot should not be pass'd in vain, — 
Morat ! the proud, the patriot field ! where man 
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, 
Nor blush for those who conquer 'd on that plain; 
Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host, 
A bony heap, through ages to remain, 
Themselves their monument ; — the Stygian coast 

Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek 'd each wan- 
dering ghost. 

lxiv. 
While "Waterloo with Cannge's carnage vies, 
Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand; 
They were true Glory's stainless victories, 
Won by the unambitious heart and hand 
Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, 
All unbought champions in no princely cause 
Of vice-entail'd Corruption; they no land 
Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws 

Making kings ' rights divine, by some Draconic clause. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 245 

LXV. 
By a lone wall a lonelier column rears 
A gray and grief -worn aspect of old days; 
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, 
And looks as with the wild-bewilder 'd gaze 
Of one to stone converted by amaze, 
Yet still with consciousness ; and there it stands 
Making a marvel that it not decays, 
When the coeval pride of human hands, 
Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew 'd her subject lands. 

LXVI. 

And there — oh ! sweet and sacred be the name ! — 

Julia — the daughter, the devoted — gave 

Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim 

Nearest to JHeaven 's, broke o'er a father's grave. 

Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave 

The life she lived in ; but the judge was just, 

And then she died on him she could not save. 

Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, 

And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one 

dust. 

Lxvn. 

But these are deeds which should not pass away, 

And names that must not wither, though the earth 

Forgets her empires with a just decay, 

The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and 

birth ; 

The high, the mountain-majesty of worth 

Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, 

And from its immortality look forth 

In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow, 

Imperishably pure beyond all things below. 



246 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 



Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, 
The mirror where the stars and mountains view 
The stillness of their aspect in each trace 
Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue : 
There is too much of man here, to look through 
With a fit mind the might which I behold ; 
But soon in me shall Loneliness renew 
Thoughts hid, but not less cherish 'd than of old, 
Ere mingling with the herd had penn 'd me in their fold, 

LXIX. 

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind : 
All are not fit with them to stir and toil, 
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind 
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil 
In the hot throng, where we become the spoil 
Of our infection, till too late and long 
We may deplore and struggle with the coil, 
In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 
Midst a contentious world, striving where none are 
strong. 



There, in a moment, we may plunge our years 
In fatal penitence, and in the blight 
Of our own soul turn all our blood to tears, 
And color things to come with hues of Night; 
The race of life becomes a hopeless flight 
To those that walk in darkness: on the sea, 
The boldest steer but where their ports invite, 



CHILDE HABOLD'S PILGEIMAGE 247 

But there are wanderers o'er Eternity 
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne'er 
shall be. 

LXXI. 

Is it not better, then, to be alone, 
And love Earth only for its earthly sake? 
By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, 
Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake, 
"Which feeds it as a mother who doth make 
A fair but froward infant her own care, 
Kissing its cries away as these awake; — 
Is it not better thus our lives to wear, 
Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or 
bear? 

Lxxn. 

I live not in myself, but I become 
Portion of that around me ; and to me 
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum 
Of human cities torture : I can see 
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be 
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 
Class 'd among creatures, when the soul can flee, 
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain 
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. 

Lxxin. 

And thus I am absorb 'd, and this is life ; 
I look upon the peopled desert past, 
As on a place of agony and strife, 
Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast, 
To act and suffer, but remount at. last 



248 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

With a fresh pinion ; which I feel to spring, 
Though young, yet waxing vigorous, as the blast 
Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, 
Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being 
cling. 

LXXIV. 

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free 
From what it hates in this degraded form, 
Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be 
Existent happier in the fly and worm, — 
When elements to elements conform, 
And dust is as it should be, shall I not 
Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm? 
The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot? 
Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal 
lot? 

LXXV. 

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part 
Of me and of my soul, as I of them? 
Is not the love of these deep in my heart 
With a pure passion? should I not contemn 
All objects, if compared with these? and stem 
A tide of suffering, rather than forego 
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm 
Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below, 
Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare 
not glow? 

LXXVI. 

But this is not my theme ; and I return 
To that which is immediate, and require 
Those who find contemplation in the urn, 
To look on One, whose dust was once all fire, 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 249 

A native of the land where I respire 
The clear air for a while — a passing guest, 
Where he became a being, — whose desire 
Was to be glorious; 'twas a foolish quest, 
The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest. 

LXXVII. 

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, 
The apostle of affliction, he who threw 
Enchantment over passion, and from woe 
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew 
The breath which made him wretched ; yet he knew 
How to make madness beautiful, and cast 
O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue 
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past 

The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and 
fast. 

lxxviii. 
His love was passion 's essence — as a tree 
On fire by lightning ; with ethereal flame 
Kindled he was, and blasted ; for to be 
Thus, and enamor 'd, were in him the same. 
But his was not the love of living dame, 
Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, 
But of ideal beauty, which became 
In him existence, and o'erflowing teems 

Along his burning page, distemper 'd though it seems. 

LXXIX. 

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this 
Invested her with all that 's wild and sweet ; 
This hallow 'd, too, the memorable kiss 



250 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Which every morn his fever 'd lip would greet, 
From hers, who but with friendship his would meet ; 
But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast 
Flash 'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat; 
In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest 
Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest. 

LXXX. 

His life was one long war with self-sought foes, 
Or friends by him self -banish 'd; for his mind 
Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose, 
For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind 
'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. 
But he was phrensied, — wherefore, who may know ? 
Since cause might be which skill could never find; 
But he was phrensied by disease or woe, 
To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning 
show. 

LXXXI. 

For then he was inspired, and from him came, 
As from the Pythian 's mystic cave of yore, 
Those oracles which set the world in flame, 
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more : 
Did he not this for France ? which lay before 
Bow'd to the inborn tyranny of years? 
Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore, 
Till by the voice of him and his compeers 
Koused up to too much wrath, which follows o'er- 
grown fears ? 

LXXXH. 

They made themselves a fearful monument! 
The wreck of old opinions — things which grew, 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 251 

Breathed from the birth of time : the veil they rent, 
And what behind it lay all earth shall view. 
But good with ill they also overthrew, 
Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild 
Upon the same foundation, and renew 
Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refill 'd, 
As heretofore, because ambition was self-will'd. 



But this will not endure, nor be endured ! 
Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt. 
They might have used it better, but, allured 
By their new vigor, sternly have they dealt 
On one another; pity ceased to melt 
With her once natural charities. But they 
"Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt, 
They were not eagles, nourish 'd with the day; 
What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their 
prey? 

LXXXIV. 

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? 
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear 
That which disfigures it ; and they who war 
With their own hopes, and have been vanquish 'd, 

bear 
Silence, but not submission : in his lair 
Fix'd Passion holds his breath, until the hour 
Which shall atone for years ; none need despair ; 
It came, it cometh, and will come, — the power 
To punish or forgive — in one we shall be slower. 



252 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

LXXXV. 
Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, 
"With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
"Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
To waft me from distraction; once I loved 
Torn ocean 's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved, 
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so 
moved. 

LXXXVI. 

It is the hush of night, and all between 
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
Mellow 'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 
Save darken 'd Jura, whose capt heights appear 
Precipitously steep ; and drawing near, 
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more ; 

LXXXVII. 

He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; 
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the hill, 
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
All silently their tears of love instil, 
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 253 

LXXXVIII. 

Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven, 
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 
Of men and empires, — 'tis to be forgiven, 
That in our aspirations to be great, 
Our destinies o 'erleap their mortal state, 
And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 
A beauty and a mystery, and create 
In us such love and reverence from afar, 
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named them- 
selves a star. 

LXXXIX. 

All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep, 
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; 
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : — 
All heaven and earth are still : From the high host 
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast, 
All is concenter 'd in a life intense, 
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
But hath a part of being, and a sense 
Of that which is of all Creator and defence. 

xc. 

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt 
In solitude, where we are least alone; 
A truth, which through our being then doth melt 
And purifies from self: it is a tone, 
The soul and source of music, which makes known 
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, 
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 
Binding all things with beauty; — 'twould disarm 
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. 



254 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

XCI. 

Not vainly did the early Persian make 
His altar the high places and the peak 
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take 
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek 
The Spirit in whose honor shrines are weak, 
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare 
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, 
With Nature's realms of worship, enrth and air, 
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray 'r ! 

xcn. 
Thy sky is changed ! — and such a change ! night, 
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among 
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud! 

xcm. 
And this is in the night : — Most glorious night ! 
Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 
A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, 
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! 
And now again 'tis black,— and now, the glee 
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 



CHILDE HAEOLD'S PILGRIMAGE 255 

XCIV. 

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between 
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, 
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted ! 
Though in their souls, which thus each other 

thwarted, 
Love was the very root of the fond rage 
Which blighted their life's bloom, and then de- 
parted : 
Itself expired, but leaving them an age 
Of years all winters, — war within themselves to wage. 



Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, 
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: 
For here, not one, but many, make their play, 
And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, 
Flashing and cast around : of all the band, 
The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd 
His lightnings, — as if he did understand, 
That in such gaps as desolation work'd, 
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein 
lurk'd. 

XCVI. 

Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye, 
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
To make these felt and feeling, well may be 
Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll 
Of your departing voices, is the knoll 
Of what in me is sleepless, — if I rest. 



256 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

But where of ye, oh tempests ! is the goal ¥ 
Are ye like those within the human breast ? 
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest? 



Could I embody and unbosom now 
That which is most within me, — could I wreak 
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, 
All that I would have sought, and all I seek, 
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into one word, 
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak ; 
But as it is, I live and die unheard, 
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 

xcvm. 

The morn is up again, the dewy morn, 
"With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, 
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, 
And living as if earth contain 'd no tomb, — 
And glowing into day : we may resume 
The march of our existence: and thus I, 
Still on thy shores, fair Leman ! may find room 
And food for meditation, nor pass by 
Much, that may give us pause, if ponder 'd fittingly. 



Clarens! sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep Love, 
Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought, 
Thy trees take root in Love ; the snows above 
The very Glaciers have his colors caught, 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 257 

And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought 
By rays which sleep there lovingly : the rocks, 
The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought 
In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, 

Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, 
then mocks. 

c. 
Clarens ! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod, — 
Undying Love 's, who here ascends a throne 
To which the steps are mountains; where the god 
Is a pervading life and light, — so shown 
Not on those summits solely, nor alone 
In the still cave and forest; o'er the flower 
His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown, 
His soft and summer breath, whose tender power 

Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate 
hour. 

ci. 
All things are here of him; from the black pines, 
Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar 
Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines 
Which slope his green path downward to the shore, 
Where the bow 'd waters meet him, and adore, 
Kissing his feet with murmurs ; and the wood, 
The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar, 
But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood, 

Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude. 

en. 
A populous solitude of bees and birds, 
And fairy-formed and many-color 'd things, 
Who worship him with notes more sweet than words, 



258 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And innocently open their glad wings, 
Fearless and full of life ; the gush of springs, 
And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend 
Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings 
The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend, 
Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end. 

cm. 
He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore, 
And make his heart a spirit ; he who knows 
That tender mystery, will love the more, 
For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes, 
And the world's waste, have driven him far from 

those, 
For 'tis his nature to advance or die ; 
He stands not still, but or decays, or grows 
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie 
With the immortal lights, in its eternity ! 

Civ. 
'Twas not for fiction chose Eousseau this spot, 
Peopling it with affections ; but he found 
It was the scene which passion must allot 
To the mind's purified beings; 'twas the ground 
Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound, 
And hallow 'd it with loveliness: 'tis lone, 
And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound, 
And sense, and sight of sweetness ; here the Rhone 
Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have rear 'd a 
throne. 

cv. 
Lausanne ! and Ferney ! ye have been the abodes 
Of names which unto you bequeathed a name ; 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 259 

Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads 
A path to perpetuity of fame : 
They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim 
Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile 
Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the 

flame 
Of Heaven, again assail 'd, if Heaven the while 
On man and man 's research could deign do more than 

smile. 

cvi. 

The one was fire and fickleness, a child, 
Most mutable in wishes, but in mind, 
A wit as various, — gay, grave, sage, or wild, — 
Historian, bard, philosopher, combined; 
He multiplied himself among mankind, 
The Proteus of their talents : But his own 
Breathed most in ridicule, — which, as the wind, 
Blew where it listed, laying all things prone, — 
Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne. 



The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought, 
And hiving wisdom with each studious year, 
In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, 
And shaped his weapon with an edge severe, 
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer; 
The lord of irony, — that master-spell, 
Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from 

fear, 
And. doom'd him to the zealot's ready Hell, 
Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. 



260 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

CVIH. 
Yet, peace be with their ashes,— for by them, 
If merited, the penalty is paid; 
It is not ours to judge, — far less condemn ; 
The hour must come when such things shall be made 
Known unto all, — or hope and dread allay 'd 
By slumber, on one pillow, — in the dust, 
Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay 'd ; 
And when it shall revive, as is our trust, 
'Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just. 

cix. 

But let me quit man ? s works, again to read 
His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend 
This page, which from my reveries I feed, 
Until it seems prolonging without end. 
The clouds above me to the white Alps tend, 
And I must pierce them, and survey whate 'er 
May be permitted, as my steps I bend 
To their most great and growing region, where 
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air. 

CXc 

Italia ! too, Italia ! looking on thee, 
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages, 
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, 
To the last halo of the chiefs and sages 
Who glorify thy consecrated pages ; 
Thou wert the throne and grave of empires ; still, 
The fount at which the panting mind assuages 
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, 
Flows from the eternal source of Rome 's imperial hill. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 261 

CXI. 

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme 
Renew 'd with no kind auspices : — to feel 
We are not what we have been, and to deem 
We are not what we should be, — and to steel 
The heart against itself; and to conceal, 
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught, — 
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal, — 
Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought, 
Is a stern task of soul : — No matter , — it is taught. 

cxn. 

And for these words, thus woven into song, 
It may be that they are a harmless wile,- — 
The coloring of the scenes which fleet along, 
Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile 
My breast, or that of others, for a while. 
Fame is the thirst of youth, — but I am not 
So young as to regard men's frown or smile, 
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot; 
I stood and stand alone, — remember 'd or forgot. 

GXIII. 

I have not loved the world, nor the world me ; 
I have not flatter 'd its rank breath, nor bow'd 
To its idolatries a patient knee, — 
Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, — nor cried aloud 
In worship of an echo; in the crowd 
They could not deem me one of such; I stood 
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud 
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still 
could, 
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued. 



262 • SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

CXIV. 

I have not loved the world, nor the world me, — 
But let us part fair foes ; I do believe, 
Though I have found them not, that there may be 
Words which are things, — hopes which will not 

deceive, 
And virtues which are merciful, or weave 
Snares for the failing: I would also deem 
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; 
That two, or one, are almost what they seem, — 
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream. 

cxv. 

My daughter ! with thy name this song begun — 
My daughter ! with thy name thus much shall end — ■ 
I see thee not, — I hear thee not, — but none 
Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend 
To whom the shadows of far years extend : 
Albeit my brow thou never should 'st behold, 
My voice shall with thy future visions blend 
And reach into thy heart, — when mine is cold, — 
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould. 

cxvi. 

To aid thy mind's development, — to watch 
Thy dawn of little joys, — to sit and see 
Almost thy very growth, — to view thee catch 
Knowledge of objects, — wonders yet to thee! 
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee, 
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss, — 
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me ; 
Yet this was in my nature : — as it is, 
I know not what is there, yet something like to this. 



CHILDE HABOLD'S PILGEIMAGE 263 



Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, 
I know that thou wilt love me ; though my name 
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught 
With desolation, — and a broken claim : 
Though the grave closed between us, — 'twere the 

same, 
I know that thou wilt love me ; though to drain 
My blood from out thy being were an aim, 
And an attainment, — all would be in vain, — 
Still thou would 'st love me, still that more than life 

retain. 

cxvhi. 

The child of love, — though born in bitterness 
And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire 
These were the elements, — and thine no less. 
As yet such are around thee, — but thy fire 
Shall be more temper 'd, and thy hope far higher. 
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers ! 'er the sea, 
And from the mountains where I now respire, 
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, 
As, with a sigh, I deem thou might 'st have been to me ! 



CHILDE HAROLD. 

CANTO IV. 



I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand; 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: 
; A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred 
isles ! 

II. 

i She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 

Rising with her tiara of proud towers 

At airy distance, with majestic motion, 

A ruler of the waters and their powers. 

And such she was ; — her daughters had their dowers 
> From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 

Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers : 

In purple was she robed, and of her feast 
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased. 



In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 
And silent rows the songless gondolier ; 
264 



CHILDE HAEOLD 265 

Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear ; 
Those days are gone, but Beauty still is here ; 
States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die, 
> Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 

The pleasant place of all festivity, 
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy ! 



But unto us she hath a spell beyond 
Her name in story, and her long array 

J Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond 
Above the dogeless city's vanished sway : 
Ours is a trophy which will not decay 
With the Bialto ; Shyloek and the Moor 
And Pierre can not be swept or worn away, 

» The keystones of the arch ! — though all were o'er, 
For us repeopled were the solitary shore. 

v. 

The beings of the mind are not of clay ; 
Essentially immortal, they create 
And multiply in us a brighter ray 
) And more beloved existence. That which Fate 
Prohibits to dull life in this our state 
Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, 
First exiles, then replaces what we hate; 
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, 
45 And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. 

VI. 

Such is the refuge of our youth and age, 
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy ; 



266 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And this worn feeling peoples many a page, 
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye. 
Yet there are things whose strong reality 
Outshines our fairy-land ; in shape and hues 
More beautiful than our fantastic sky, 
And the strange constellations which the Muse 
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse : 



> I saw or dreamed of such, — but let them go, — 
They came like truth, and disappeared like dreams ; 
And whatso'er they were — are now but so. 
I could replace them if I would; still teems 
My mind with many a form which aptly seems 

) Such as I sought for, and at moments found : 
Let these too go, for waking Eeason deems 
Such over-weening phantasies unsound, 
And other voices speak and other sights surround. 



I've taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes 
5 Have made me not a stranger — to the mind 

Which is itself, no changes bring surprise; 

Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find 

A country with — ay, or without mankind ; 

Yet was I born where men are proud to be, 
> Not without cause; and should I leave behind 

The inviolate island of the sage and free, 
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, 

IX. 

Perhaps I loved it well ; and should I lay 
My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 



CHILDE HAKOLD 267 

My spirit shall resume it — if we may 
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine 
My hopes of being remember'd in my line 
With my land's language : if too fond and far 
These aspirations in their scope incline, — 
I 80 If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, 
I Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 

x. 

My name from out the temple where the dead 
Are honoured by the nations — let it be, 
And light the laurels on a loftier head ! 

85 And be the Spartan's epitaph on me, 

'Sparta hath many a worthier son than he/ 
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need ; 
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree 
I planted, — they have torn me — and I bleed : 

m I should have known what fruit would spring from such 
a seed. 

XI. 

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ; 
And annual marriage now no more renew' d, 
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, 
Neglected garment of her widowhood ! 
95 St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood 
Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power, 
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, 
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour 
When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower. 

XII. 

loo The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — 
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt ; 



268 SHOKTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains 
Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt 
From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt 
105 The sunshine for a while, and downward go 

Like lauwine loosen' d from the mountain's belt ; — 
Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo, 
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe ! 

XIII. 

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, 
no Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; 
But is not Doria's menace come to pass? 
Are they not bridled f — Venice lost and won, 
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, 
Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose ! 
115 Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun, 
Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, 
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. 

XIV. 

In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre, 
Her very by-word sprung from victory, 

120 The Tlanter of the Lion,' which through fire 
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; 
Though making many slaves, herself still free, 
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; — 
Witness Troy's rival, Candia ! Vouch it, ye 

125 Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight ! 
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. 

xv. 

Statues of glass — all shiver'd — the long file 
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust ; 



CHILDE HAROLD 269 

But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile 
130 Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust ; 
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, 
Have yielded to the stranger ; empty halls, 
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must 
Too oft remind her who and what enthralls, 
135 Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. 

XVI. 

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, 
And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war, 
Eedemption rose up in the Attic Muse, 
Her voice their only ransom from afar : 
5 See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car 
Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins 
Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar 
Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's chains, 
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. 

XVII. 

> Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, 
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, 
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine, 
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot 
Which ties thee to thy tyrants ; and thy lot 

) Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, 
Albion, to thee : the Ocean queen should not 
Abandon Ocean's children ; in the fall 
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. 

XVIII. 

I loved her from my boyhood ; she to me 
155 Was as a fairy city of the heart, 



270 SHOBTES ENGLISH POEMS 

Kising like water-columns from the sea, 
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart : 
And Otway, Kadcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art, 
Had stamp'd her image in me ; and even so, 
160 Although I found her thus, we did not part, 
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe 
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. 

XIX. 

I can repeople with the past — and of 

The present there is still for eye and thought, 

165 And meditation chasten 7 d down, enough, 

And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought: 
And of the happiest moments which were wrought 
Within the web of my existence, some 
From thee, fair Venice, have their colours caught : 

170 There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, 

Nor torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. 

xx. 

But from their nature will the tannen grow 
Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks, 
Eooted in barrenness, where nought below 

175 Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks 

Of eddying storms ; yet springs the trunk, and mocks 
The howling tempest, till its height and frame 
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came, 

180 And grew a giant tree ; — the mind may grow the same. 



Existence may be borne, and the deep root 
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode 



CHILDE HAEOLD 271 

In bare and desolated bosoms : mute 
The camel labours with the heaviest load, 
185 And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestowed 
. In vain should such example be ; if they, 
Things of ignoble or of savage mood, 
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay 
May temper it to bear, — it is but for a day. 



190 All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd 
Even by the sufferer ; and, in each event, 
Ends : — Some, with hope replenished and rebuoy'd, 
Eeturn to whence they came — with like intent, 
And weave their web again ; some, bow'd and bent, 

195 Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, 
And perish with the reed on which they leant ; 
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good, or crime, 
According as their souls were formed to sink or climb. 



But ever and anon of griefs subdued 
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ; 
And slight withal may be the things which bring 
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling 
Aside for ever : it may be a sound, — 
205 A tone of music, summer's eve, or spring, 

A flower, the wind, the ocean, — which shall wound, 
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly 
bound ; 



272 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 



XXIV. 

And how and why we know not, nor can trace 
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, 

210 But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface 

The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, 
Which out of things familiar, undesigned, 
When least we deem of such, calls up to view 
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, 

215 The cold — the changed — perchance the dead — anew, 
The mourn'd, the loved, the lost — too many ! — yet 
how few ! 

XXV. 

But my soul wanders ; I demand it back 
To meditate amongst decay, and stand 
A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track 
220 Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land 
Which was the mightiest in its old command, 
And is the loveliest, and must ever be 
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, 
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, 
The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea, 

XXVI. 

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Eome ! 
And even since, and now, fair Italy, 
Thou art the garden of the world, the home 
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; 
230 Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ? 
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 
More rich than other climes' fertility ; 
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced. 



.. 



CHILDE HAEOLD 273 

' XXVII. 

235 The moon is up, and yet it is not night — 
Sunset divides the sky with her, a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains ; Heaven is free 
From clouds, hut of all colours seems to be 

MO Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 

Where the Day joins the past Eternity; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
Floats through the azure air, an island of the blest ! 

XXVIII. 

A single star is at her side, and reigns 
245 With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still 
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
Koll'd o'er the peak of the far Ehsetian hill, 
As Day and Night contending were, until 
Nature reclaimed her order : gently flows 
250 The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose, 
Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it 
glows, 

XXIX. 

Fill'd with the face of heaven, which from afar 
Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues, 
255 From the rich sunset to the rising star, 
Their magical variety diffuse. 
And now they change ; a paler shadow strews 
Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day 
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
o With a new colour as it gasps away, 
The last still loveliest, till — 't is gone — and all is gray. 



274 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 



There is a tomb in Arqua ; — reared in air, 
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose 
The bones of Laura's lover : here repair 

265 Many familiar with his well-sung woes, 
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose 
To raise a language, and his land reclaim 
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes ; 
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name 

270 With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. 

XXXI. 

They keep his dust in Arqua where he died, 
The mountain-village where his latter days 
Went down the vale of years ; and 't is their pride - 
An honest pride, and let it be their praise — 
275 To offer to the passing stranger's gaze 

His mansion and his sepulchre ; both plain 
And venerably simple, such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his strain 
Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. 

XXXII. 

280 And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt 
Is one of that complexion which seems made 
For those who their mortality have felt, 
And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed 
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, 

285 Which shows a distant prospect far away 
Of busy cities, now in vain display'd, 
For they can lure no further ; and the ray 
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, 



CHILDE HAEOLD 275 



XXXIII. 



Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, 
And shining in the brawling brook, where-by, 
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours 
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye 
Idlesse it seem, hath its mortality. 
If from society we learn to live, 
J T is solitude- should teach us how to die; 
It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give 
No hollow aid ; alone — man with his God must strive : 



Or, it may be, with demons, who impair 

The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey 

300 In melancholy bosoms, such as were 

Of moody texture from their earliest day 
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, 
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom 
Which is not of the pangs that pass away ; 

305 Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, 
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. 

XXXV. 

Ferrara, in thy wide and grass-grown streets, 
Whose symmetry was not for solitude, 
There seems as J t were a curse upon the seats 

310 Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood 
Of Este, which for many an age made good 
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore 
Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood 
Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore 

315 The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before. 



276 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

XXXVI. 

And Tasso is their glory and their shame : 
Hark to his strain and then survey his cell ! 
And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame, 
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell. 
) The miserable despot could not quell 

The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend 
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell 
Where he had plunged it. Glory without end 
Scattered the clouds away, and on that name attend 



i The tears and praises of all time ; while thine 
Would rot in its oblivion — in the sink 
Of worthless dust which from thy boasted line 
Is shaken into nothing — but the link 
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think 

) Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn. 
Alfonso ! how thy ducal pageants shrink 
From thee ! if in another station born, 
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn : — 



Thou! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die, 
i Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou 
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty ; 
He ! with a glory round his f urrow'd brow, 
Which emanated then, and dazzles now, 
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, 
) And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow 

No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre, 
That whetstone of the teeth — monotony in wire ! 



GHILDE HAEOLD 277 



Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! ? t was his 
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong 

345 Ami'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss. 
Oh, victor unsurpassed in modern song ! 
Each year brings forth its millions ; but how long 
The tide of generations shall roll on, 
And not the whole combined and countless throng 

350 Compose a mind like thine ! Though all in one 

Condensed their scattered rays, they would not form 
a sun 

XL. 

Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those, 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine, 
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry : first rose 

355 The Tuscan father's comedy divine ; 
Then, not unequal to the Florentine 
The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth 
A new creation with his magic line, 
And, like the Ariosto of the North, 

360 Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. 

XLI. 

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 
The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves ; 
rTor was the ominous element unjust, 
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves 
365 Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, 

And the false semblance but disgraced his brow ; 
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, 
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below 
Whate'er it strikes ; — yon head is doubly sacred now. 



278 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 



370 Italia ! oh, Italia ! thou who hast 

The fatal gift of beauty, which became 
A funeral dower of present woes and past, 
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, 
And annals graved in characters of flame. 

975 Oh, God ! that thou wert in thy nakedness 

Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim 

Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press 

To shed thy blood and drink the tears of thy distress; 



Then mightst thou more appal; or, less desired, 
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored 
For thy destructive charms ; then, still untired, 
Would not be seen the armed torrents poured 
Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde 
Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po 
; Quaff blood and water ; nor the stranger's sword 

Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, 
Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe 



Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, 
The Boman friend of Borne' s least-mortal mind, 

) The friend of Tully. As my bark did skim 
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 
iEgina lay, Piraeus on the right, 
And Corinth on the left ; I lay reclined 

i Along the prow, and saw all these unite 
In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight ; — 



CHILDE HAEOLD 279 



XLV. 



For Time liath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd 

Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site, 

Which only make more mourned and more endear'd 

400 The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light 
And the crushed relics of their vanished might. 
The Eoman saw these tombs in his own age, 
These sepulchres of cities which excite 
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 

405 The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. 



That page is now before me, and on mine 
His country's ruin added to the mass 
Of perished states he mourn' d in their decline, 
And I in desolation. All that was 
410 Of then destruction is; and now, alas ! 

Eome — Eome imperial, bows her to the storm, 
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass 
The skeleton of her Titanic form, 
Wrecks of another world whose ashes still are warm. 



5 Yet, Italy ! through every other land 

Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; 
Mother of Arts, as once of arms ; thy hand 
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide ; 
Parent of our Beligion, whom the wide 

) Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven ! 
Europe, repentant of her parricide, 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, 
Eoll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 



280 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 



But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, 
5 Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps 
A softer feeling for her fairy halls. 
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps 
Her corn and wine and oil, and Plenty leaps 
To laughing life with her redundant horn. 
) Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 

Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, 
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn. 

XLIX. 

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills 
The air around with beauty. We inhale 

> The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils 
Part of its immortality ; the veil 
Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face behold 
What mind can make when Nature's self would fail ; 

i And to the fond idolaters of old 
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould. 



We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 
Eeels with its fulness ; there — for ever there — 
Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art, 
We stand as captives and would not depart. 
Away ! — there need no words nor terms precise, 
The paltry jargon of the marble mart 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes : 



CHILDE HAEOLD 281 

450 Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's 
prize. 

LI. 

Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise ? 
Or to more deeply blest Anchises ? or, 
In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies 
Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War? 
455 And gazing in thy face as toward a star, 
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, 
Feeding on thy sweet cheek ; while thy lips are 
With lava kisses melting while they' burn, 
Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from 
an urn ! 

in. 

460 Glowing and cir cum fused in speechless love, 
Their full divinity inadequate 
That feeling to express or to improve, 
The gods become as mortals, and man's fate 
Has moments like their brightest ; but the weight 

465 Of earth recoils upon us ; — let it go ! 
We can recall such visions, and create, 
From what has been or might be, things which grow 
Into thy statue's form and look like gods below. 



I leave to learned fingers and wise hands, 
470 The artist and his ape, to teach and tell 
How well his connoisseurship understands 
The graceful bend and the voluptuous swell : 
Let these describe the undescribable ; 
I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream 



282 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

> Wherein that image shall for ever dwell, 

The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream 
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. 



In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 

) Even in itself an immortality, 

Though there were nothing save the past, and this, 
The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos : here repose 
Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his, 

> The starry Galileo, with his woes ; 
Here Machiavellr's earth returned to whence it rose. 



These are four minds, which, like the elements, 

Might furnish forth creation. Italy ! 

Time, which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand 
rents 
) Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, 

And hath denied, to every other sky 

Spirits which soar from ruin : — thy decay 

Is still impregnate with divinity, 

Which gilds it with revivifying ray; 
> Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. 



But where repose the all Etruscan three — 
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they, 
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit, he 
Of the Hundred Tales of love — where did they lay 



CHILDE HAEOLD 283 

500 Their bones, distinguished from our common clay 
In death as life ? Are they resolved to dust, 
And have their country's marbles nought to say ? 
Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust? 
Did thev not to her breast their filial earth intrust ? 



5 Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar, 
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore ; 
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, 
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore 
Their children's children would in vain adore 

o With the remorse of ages ; and the crown 

Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, 
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, 
His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled — not thine 
own. 

LVIII. 

Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeath'd 
> His dust ; and lies it not her Great among, 

With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed 
O'er him who f orm'd the Tuscan's siren tongue 'f 
That music in itself, whose sounds are song, 
The poetry of speech ? No ; — even his tomb 
) Uptorn must bear the hyaena bigot's wrong, 

No more amidst the meaner dead find room, 
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom! 



And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust,— 
Yet for this want more noted, as of yore 
The Caesar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, 



284 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Did but of Kome's best Son remind her more. 
Happier Eavenna ! on thy hoary shore, 
Fortress of falling empire, honour' d sleeps 
The immortal exile ; Arqua, too, her store 
530 Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, 

While Florence vainly begs her banish' d dead, and 
weeps. 

LX. 

What is her pyramid of precious stones, 
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues 
Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones 

§35 Of merchant-dukes? The momentary dews 
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse 
Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, 
Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, 
Are gently prest with far more reverent tread 

540 Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head. 



There be more things to greet the heart and eyes 
In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine, 
Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies ; 
There be more marvels yet — but not for mine ; 
i For I have been accustom'd to entwine 

My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, 
Than Art in galleries : though a work divine 
Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields 
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields 



Is of another temper, and I roam 
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles 



CHILDE HAEOLD 285. 

Fatal to Koman rashness, more at home ; 
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles 
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles 
The host between the mountains and the shore, 
Where Courage falls in her despairing files, 
And torrents, swoll'n to rivers with their gore, 
Reek through the sultr}^ plain with legions shattered o'er, 

LXIII. 

Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds; 
And such the storm of battle on this day, 
And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds 
To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray, 
An earthquake reel'd unheededly away ! 
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet, 
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay 
Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet ; 
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet! 

LXIV. 

The Earth to them was as a rolling bark 
Which bore them to Eternity ; they saw 
The Ocean round, but had no time to mark 
The motions of their vessel ; Nature's law, 
In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe 
Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds 
Plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw 
From their down-toppling nests ; and bellowing herds 
Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no 
words. 

LXV. 

Far other scene is Thrasimene now ; 
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 



286 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Kent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; 

58§ Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain 

Lay where their roots are ; but a brook hath ta'en — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain ; 
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead 

585 Made the earth wet and turned the unwilling waters red 



But thou, Clitumnus, in thy sweetest wave 
Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear 
) Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer 
Grazes, — the purest god of gentle waters, 
And most serene of aspect, and most clear ! 
Surely that stream was unprof aned by slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters ! 



i And on thy happy shore a Temple still, 
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, 
Upon a mild declivity of hill, 
Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps 

) The finny darter with the glittering scales, 
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; 
While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling 
tales. 



CHILDE HAEOLD 287 



Pass not unblest the Genius of the place ! 

605 If through the air a zephyr more serene 
Win to the brow, 't is his ; and if ye trace 
Along his margin a more eloquent green, 
If on the heart the freshness of the scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust 

610 Of weary life -a moment lave it clean 

With Nature's- baptism, — 't is to him ye must 
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. 



The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height 
Velino cleaves the wave- worn precipice; 

> The fall of waters ! rapid as the light 

The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ; 
The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat 
Of their great agony, wrung out from this 

) Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, 



And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again 
Eeturns in an unceasing shower, which round, 
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, 

625 Is an eternal April to the ground, 

Making it all one emerald : — how profound 
The gulf ! and how the giant element 
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, 
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent 

630 With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent 



288 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 



To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 
More like the fountain of an infant sea 
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 
Of a new world, than only thus to be 
5 Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, 

With many windings, through the vale : — Look back ! 
Lo, where it comes like an eternity, 
As if to sweep down all things in its track, 
Charming the eye with dread — a matchless cataract, 

LXXII. 

o Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge, 

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, 
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge. 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 
Its steady dyes while all around is torn 

5 By the distracted waters, bears serene 

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn ; 
Eesembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, 
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 



Once more upon the woody Apennine, 
650 The infant Alps, which — had I not before 

Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine 
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar 
The thundering lauwine — might be worshipped more ; 
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear 
665 Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar 

Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, 
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, 



CHILDE HAEOLD 289 



Th ? Acroceraunian mountains of old name; 
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly 

660 Like spirits of the spot, as ? t were for fame, 
For still they soared unutterably high : 
I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye; 
Athos, Olympus, ^Etna, Atlas, made 
These hills seem things of lesser dignity, 

665 All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayed 
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Koman's aid 

LXXV. 

For our remembrance, and from out the plain 
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, 
And on the curl hangs pausing. Not in vain 

670 May he, who will, his recollections rake, 
And quote in classic raptures, and awake 
The hills with Latin echoes ; I abhorr'd 
Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, 
The drilPd dull lesson, forced down word by word 

675 In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record 

LXXVI. 

Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd 
My sickening memory ; and, though Time hath taught 
My mind to meditate what then it learn'd, 
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought 
680 By the impatience of my early thought, 

That, with the freshness wearing out before 
My mind could relish what it might have sought, 
If free to choose, I cannot now restore 
Its health ; but what it then detested, still abhor. 



290 SHOKTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

LXXVII. 

5 Then farewell, Horace ; whom I hated so, 
Not for thy faults, but mine ; it is a curse 
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow, 
To comprehend, but never love thy verse, 
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse 

o Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art, 
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce, 
Awakening without wounding the touched heart ; 
Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's ridge we part. 



Oh Eome, my country ! city of the soul ! 

695 The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
Lone mother of dead empires, and control 
In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 

700 O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye ! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay, 

LXXIX. 

The Mobe of nations ! there she stands, - 
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 

70b An empty urn within her withered hands, 
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago : 
The Scipios 7 tomb contains no ashes now; 
The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
Of their heroic dwellers ; — dost thou flow, 

7io Old Tiber, through a marble wilderness ? 

Eise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress ! 



CHILDE HAEOLD 291 



The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hilFd city's pride ; 
She saw her glories star by star expire, 

715 And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride 

Where the car climb'd the capitol ; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : — 
Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void, 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, 

720 And say, liere was, or is/ where all is doubly night ? 



The double night of ages, and of her, 
Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap 
All round us ; we but feel our way to err : 
The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, 
725 And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
But Rome is as the desert where we steer 
Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap 
Our hands, and cry 'Eureka !' it is clear — 
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. 

LXXXII. 

730 Alas, the lofty city ! and alas, 

The trebly hundred triumphs ! and the day 
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass 
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! 
Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, 

735 And Livy's pictured page ! — but these shall be 
Her resurrection; all beside — decay. 
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 
That brightness in her eye she bore when Eome was free ! 



292 SHOKTER ENGLISH POEMS 



Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, 
b Triumphant Sylla ! thou, who didst subdue 

Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel 
The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due 
Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew 
O'er prostrate Asia ; — thou, who with thy frown 
5 Annihilated senates — Eoman, too, 

With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down 
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown, 



The dictatorial wreath, — couldst thou divine 
To what would one day dwindle that which made 

750 Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine 

By aught than Eomans Eome should thus be laid ? 
She who was named Eternal ; and array'd 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who veil'd 
Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed, 

755 Until the o'er-canopied horizon f ail'd, 

Her rushings wings — Oh, she who was Almighty haiPd ! 



Sylla was first of victors ; but our own 
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ; he 
Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne 
760 Down to a block — immortal rebel I. See 
What crimes it costs to be a moment free 
And famous through all ages ! but beneath 
His fate the moral lurks of destiny ; 
His day of double victory and death 



CHTLDE HAROLD 293 

765 Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his 
breath. 

LXXXVI. 

The third of the same moon whose former course 
Had all bnt crown'd him, on the self-same day 
Deposed him gently from his throne of force, 
And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. 
770 And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and sway, 
And all we deem delightful and consume 
Our souls to compass through each arduous way, 
Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb ? 
Were they but so in man's, how different were his doom i 

LXXXVII. 

i And thou, dread statue, yet existent in 
The austerest form of naked majesty ! 
Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din, 
At thy bathed base the bloody Csesar lie,' 
Folding his robe in dying dignity, 
720 An offering to thine altar from the queen 

Of gods and men, great Nemesis ! did he die, 

And thou, too, perish, Pompey ? have ye been 

Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene ? 



And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Eome ! 

785 She-wolf, whose brazen-imaged dugs impart 
The milk of conquest yet within the dome 
Where, as a monument of antique art, 
Thou standest ; mother of the mighty heart, 
Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat, 

790 Scorch'd by the Eoman Jove's ethereal dart, 



294 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And thy limbs black with lightning — dost thou yet 
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget ? 



Thou dost ; but all thy foster-babes are dead — 
The men of iron ; and the world hath rear'd 

i Cities from out their sepulchres. Men bled 
In imitation of the things they fear'd 
And fought and conquer'd and the same course 

steered, 
At apish distance ; but as yet none have, 
Nor could the same supremacy have near'd, 

> Save one vain man, who is not in the grave, 
But vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave — 



The fool of false dominion — and a kind 
Of bastard Ca3sar, following him of old 
With steps unequal ; for the Eoman's mind 

805 Was modelFd in a less terrestrial mould, 
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, 
And an immortal instinct which redeemed 
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, 
Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd 

8io At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beam'd, 



And came — and saw — and conquered. But the man 
Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, 
Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van, 
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, 
815 With a deaf heart which never seemed to be 



CHILDE HAROLD 295 

A listener to itself, was strangely framed ; 
With but one weakest weakness — vanity, 
Coquettish in ambition — still he aim'd — 
At what ? can he avouch — or answer what he claimed ? — • 



) And would be all or nothing — nor could wait 
For the sure grave to level him ; few years 
Had fiVd him with the Caesars in his fate, 
On whom we tread. For this the conqueror rears 
The arch of triumph ! and for this the tears 
> And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed, 
_ An universal deluge, which appears 

Without an ark for wretched man's abode, 
And ebbs but to renow ! — Eenew thy rainbow, God ! 



What from this barren being do we reap ? 
830 Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, 

Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, 
And all things weighed in custom's falsest scale; 
Opinion an omnipotence, — whose veil 
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right 
835 And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale 

Lest their own judgments should become too bright, 
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too 
much light. 

xciv. 

And thus they plod in sluggish misery, 
Eotting from sire to son, and age to age, 
840 Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, 
Bequeathing their hereditary rage 



296 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage 
War for their chains, and rather than be free, 
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage 
845 Within the same arena where they see 

Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. 



I speak not of men's creeds — they rest between 
Man and his Maker — but of things allowed, 
Averr'd, and known — and daily, hourly seen — 

85€ The yoke that is upon us doubly bow'd 
And the intent of tyranny avow'd, 
The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown 
The apes of him who humbled once the proud 
And shook them from their slumbers on the throne ; 

855 Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. 



Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be, 
And Freedom find no champion and no child 
Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled ? 
860 Or must such minds be nourished in the wild, 
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar 
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled 
On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more 
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore ? 

xcvu. 

8@5 But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
And fatal have her Saturnalia been 
To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime; 



CHILDE HAEOLD 297 

Because the deadly days which we have seen, 
And vile Ambition, that built up between 
870 Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, 
And the base pageant last upon the scene, 
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 
Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his 
second fall. 

XCVIII. 

Yet, Freedom, j^et thy banner, torn but flying, 
875 Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ; 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, 
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind : 
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, 
Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth, 
880 But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find 
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; 
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 

xcix. 

There is a stern round tower of other days, 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 

885 Such as an army's baffled strength delays, 
Standing with half its battlements alone, 
And with two thousand years of ivy grown, 
The garland of eternity, where wave 
The green leaves over all by time overthrown ; — 

890 What was this tower of strength? within its cave 
What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid ? A woman's grave. 



But who was she, the lady of the dead, 
Tomb'd in a palace ? Was she chaste and fair ? 



298 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Worthy a king's — or more — a Soman's bed ? 

895 What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear? 
What daughter of her beauties was the heir? 
How lived, how loved, how died she ? Was she not 
So hononr'd — and conspicuously there, 
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, 

900 Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? 
ci. 
Was she as those who love their lords, or they 
Who love the lords of others ? — such have been 
Even in the olden time, Home's annals say. 
Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien, 

905 Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen, 
Profuse of joy — or 'gainst it did she war, 
Inveterate in virtue? did she lean 
To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar 
Love from amongst her griefs? — for such the affec- 
tions are. 

en. 

910 Perchance she died in youth : it may be, bow'd 
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb 
That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud 
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom 
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom 

915 Heaven gives its favourites — early death ; yet shed 
A sunset charm around her, and illume 
With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, 
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf -like red. 

cm. 

Perchance she died in age — surviving all, 
920 Charms, kindred, children — with the silver gray 



CHILDE HAEOLD 299 

On her long tresses, which might yet recall, 
It may be, still a something of the day 
When they were braided, and her proud array 
And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed 
925 By Eome. — But whither would Conjecture stray ? 
Thus much alone we know — Metella died, 
The wealthiest Eoman's wife. Behold his love or pride ! 

civ. 
I know not why, but standing thus by thee, 
It seems as if I had thine inmate known, 

980 Thou tomb ! and other days come back on me 
With recollected music, though the tone 
Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant wind ; 
Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone 

935 Till I had bodied, forth the heated mind, 

Forms from the floating wreck which Euin leaves 
behind ; 

cv. 
And from the planks, far shatter'd o'er the rocks, 
Built me a little bark of hope, once more 
To battle with the ocean and the shocks 

940 Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar 
Which rushes on the solitary shore 
Where all lies founder'd that was ever dear. 
But could I gather from the wave-worn store 
Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer ? 

945 There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here. 

cvr. 

Then let the winds howl on ! their harmony 
Shall henceforth be my music, and the night 



300 SHOKTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry, 
As I now hear them, in the fading light 
) Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, 
Answering each other on the Palatine, 
With their large eyes all glistening gray and bright, 
And sailing pinions. Upon such a shrine 
What are our petty griefs ? — let me not number mine. 

CVII. 

) Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown 
Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd 
On what were chambers, arch crush' d, column strown 
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd 
In subterranean damps where the owl peep'd, 

) Deeming it midnight : — Temples, baths, or halls ? 
Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reap'd 
From her research hath been, that these are walls — 
Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. 

CVIII. 

There is the moral of all human tales ; 

> 'T is but the same rehearsal of the past, 

First Freedom and then Glory — when that fails, 
Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. 
And History, with all her volumes vast, 
Hath but one page, — 'tis better written here 

> Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amass'd 
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, 

Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask. — Away with words, 
draw near, 



CHILDE HAEOLD 301 

CIX. 

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, — for here 
There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! 
975 Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, 
Ages and realms are crowded in this span, 
This mountain, whose obliterated plan 
The pyramid of empires pinnacled, 
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van 
980 Till the sun's rays with added flame were filPd! 
Where are its golden roofs? where those who dared to 
build? 

ex. 

Tully was not so eloquent as thou, 

Thou nameless column with the buried base! 

What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow? 

985 Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. 
Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, 
Titus' or Trajan's ? No — 't is that of Time : 
Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace 
Scoffing; and apostolic statues climb 

990 To crush the imperial urn whose ashes slept sublime, 

CXI. 

Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, 
And looking to the stars. They had contain'd 
A spirit which with these would find a home, 
The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd, 
995 The Eoman globe, for after none sust-ain'd 
But yielded back his conquests: he was more 
Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd 



302 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

With household blood and wine, serenely wore 
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore. 



looo Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place 

Where Eome embraced her heroes? where the steep 
Tarpeian, fittest goal of Treason's race, 
The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap 
Cured all ambition? Did the conquerors heap 

1005 Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below, 
A thousand years of silenced factions sleep — 
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, 
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero ! 

cxiii. 

The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood: 
1010 Here a proud people's passions were exhaled, 

From the first hour of empire in the bud 

To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd; 

But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd, 

And Anarchy assumed her attributes; 
iois Till every lawless soldier who assail'd 

Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes, 
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. 

cxiv. 

Then turn me to her latest tribune's name, 
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, 
1020 Eedeemer of dark centuries of shame — 
The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — 
Eienzi ! last of Eomans ! While the tree 
Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf 



CHILDE HAEOLD 303 

Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 
1025 The forum's champion, and the people's chief — 
Her new-born Kuma thou — with reign, alas, too brief. 



Egeria, sweet creation of some heart 
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair 
As thine ideal breast ! whate'er thou art 

1030 Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, 
The nympholepsy of some fond despair; 
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, 
Who found a more than common votary there 
Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, 

L035 Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. 



The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops; the face 
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, 
Keflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, 
) Whose green, wild margin now no more erase 
Art's works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep, 
Prison'd in marble; bubbling from the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap 
The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and. ivy 
creep, 

cxvn. 

5 Fantastically tangled. The green hills 

Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass 
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills 
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; 



304 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, 
1050 Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes 
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; 
The sweetness of the violet's deep bine eyes 
Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its 
skies. 

CXVIII. 

Here didst thon dwell, in this enchanted cover, 
1055 Egeria ! thy all heavenly bosom beating 

For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover. 

The purple Midnight veiPd that mystic meeting 

With her most starry canopy; and seating 

Thyself by thine adorer, what befell ? 
1060 This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting 

Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell 
Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle! 



And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, 
Blend a celestial with a human heart; 

1065 And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, 
Share with immortal transports? Could thine art 
Make them indeed immortal, and impart 
The purity of heaven to earthly joys, 
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — 

1070 The dull satiety which all destroys — 

And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys ? 

cxx. 

Alas ! our young affections run to waste, 

Or water but the desert; whence arise 

But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, 



CHIKDE HAEOLD 305 

M75 Eank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, 
Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, 
And trees whose gums are poison ; — such the plants 
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies 
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants 

1080 For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. 

cxxi. 

Oh Love ! no habitant of earth thou art — 
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, 
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, 
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see 
1085 The naked eye, thy form, as it should be; 

The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, 
Even with its own desiring phantasy, 
And to a thought such shape and image given, 
1 As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd — wearied — 
wrung — and riven. 

CXXII. 

poo Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, 
And fevers into false creation : — where, 
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? — 
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? 
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare 

M95 Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 
The unreached Paradise of our despair, 
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, 
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again? 

cxxiii. 
Who loves, raves — 't is youth's frenzy ; but the cure 
1100 Is bitterer still. As charm by charm unwinds 



306 SHOKTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Which robed our. idols, and we see too sure 
Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's 
Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds 
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, 
> Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; 
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, 
Seems ever near the prize, — wealthiest when most 
undone. 

cxxiv. 

We wither from our youth, we gasp away — 

Sick — sick; unfound the boon — unslaked the thirst, 

i Though to the last, in verge of our decay, 

Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — 
But all too late, — so are we doubly curst. 
Love, fame, ambition, avarice — 'tis the same, 
Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst — 

i For all are meteors with a different name, 
And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. 



Few — none — find what they love or could have 
loved, 

Though accident, blind contact, and the strong 

Necessity of loving, have removed 
1120 Antipathies — but to recur, ere long, 

Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong; 

And Circumstance, that unspiritual god 

And miscreator, makes and helps along 

Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, 
1125 Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all 
have trod. 



CHILDE HAEOLD 307 

CXXVI. 

Our life is a false nature, 't is not in 
The harmony of things, — this hard decree, 
This uneradicable taint of sin, 
This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree 
1130 Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be 

The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew — 
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — 
And worse, the woes we see not — which throb 
through 
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. 

CXXVII. 

1135 Yet let us ponder boldly ; 9 t is a base 
Abandonment of reason to resign 
Our right of thought, our last and only place 
Of refuge — this, at least, shall still be mine. 
Though from our birth the faculty divine 

U4) Is chained and tortured — cabined, cribbed, confined, 
And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine 
Too brightly on the unprepared mind, 
The beam pours in, fbr time and skill will couch the 
blind. 

CXXVIII. 

Arches on arches ! as it were that Eome, 
1145 Collecting the chief trophies of her line, 

Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, — 
Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine 
As 't were its natural torches, for divine 
Should be the light which . streams here, to illume 
i This long-explored but still exhaustless mine 



308 SHOKTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

Of contemplation; and the azure gloom 
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume 



Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, 

1155 And shadows forth its glory. There is given 
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, 
A spirit's feeling; and where he hath leant 
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power, 
And magic in the ruin'd battlement, 

1160 For which the palace of the present hour 

Must yield its pomp and wait till ages are its dower. 

cxxx. 

Oh, Time ! the beautifier of the dead, 

Adorner of the ruin, comforter 

And only healer when the heart hath bled — 

1165 Time! the corrector where our judgments err, 
The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher, 
For all besides are sophists, from thy thrift 
Which never loses though it doth defer — 
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift 

1170 My hands and eyes and heart, and crave of thee a gift : 

CXXXI. 

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine 
And temple more divinely desolate, 
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, 
Euins of years — though few, yet full of fate: — 
1175 If thou hast ever seen me too elate, 

Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne 



CHILDE HAROLD 309 

Good, and reserved my pride against the hate 
Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn 
This iron in my soul in vain — shall they not mourn? 

OXXXII. 

1180 And thou, who never yet of human wrong 
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis ! 
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long — 
Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss, 
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss 
1185 For that unnatural retribution — just, 

Had it but been from hands less near — in this 
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust! 
Dost thou not hear my heart? — Awake! thou shalt, 
and must. 

cxxxiii. 

It is not that I may not have incurred 
1190 For my ancestral faults or mine the wound 

I bleed withal, and, had it been conferred 

With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound; 

But now my blood shall not sink in the ground; 

To thee I do devote it — thou shalt take 
1195 The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found, 

Which if I have not taken for the sake — 
But let that pass — I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. 

CXXXIV. 

And if my voice break forth, 9 t is not that now 
I shrink from what is suffered; let him speak 
1200 Who hath beheld decline upon mj brow, 
Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak: 
But in this page a record will I seek. 



310 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Not in the air shall these my words disperse, 
Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak 
1205 The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, 

And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse! 

cxxxv. 

That curse shall be Forgiveness. Have I not — 
Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven! — 
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? 

1210 Have I not suffered things to be forgiven ? 

Have I not had my brain ,searM, my heart riven, 
Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away? 
And only not to desperation driven, 
Because not altogether of such clay 

1215 As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. 



From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy 
Have I not seen what human things could do? 
From the loud roar of foaming calumny 
To the small whisper of the as paltry few, 
1220 And subtler venom of the reptile crew, 

The Janus glance of whose significant eye, 
Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, 
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, 
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy. 

CXXXVII. 

1225 But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: 
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, 
And my frame perish even in conquering pain; 
But there is that within me which shall tire 



CHILDE HAEOLD 3^1 

Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; 
) Something unearthly which they deem not of, 
Like the remember' d tone of a mute lyre, 
Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move 
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. 

CXXXVIII. 

The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power ! 

11235 Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here 

Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour 
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; 
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear 
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 

1240 Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear 
That we become a part of what has been, 
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. 

CXXXIX. 

And here the buzz of eager nations ran, 
In murmur'd pity or loud-roared applause, 

1245 As man was slaughtered by his fellow man. 

And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because 
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, 
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not? 
What matters where we fall to fill the maws 

1250 Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot? 
Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. 






CXL. 

I see before me the Gladiator lie: 

He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 

Consents to death, but conquers agony, 



312 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

1255 And his droop'd head sinks gradually low — 

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now 
The arena swims around him — he is gone, 

1260 Ere ceased the inhuman shout which haiPd the wretch 
who won. 

cxli. ' , 
He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes 
Were with his heart, and that was far away; 
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, 
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 

1265 There were his young barbarians all at play, 

There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, 
Butchered to make a Boman holiday — 
All this rushed with his blood. — Shall he expire 
And unavenged ? — Arise ! ye Goths, and glut your ire ! 

CXLII. 

1270 But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam; 
And there, where buzzing nations choked the ways, 
And roar'd or murmured like a mountain stream 
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays ; 
Here, where the Boman millions' blame or praise 

1275 Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, 

My voice sounds much, and fall the stars' faint rays 
On the arena void — seats crush'd — - walls bow'd — 
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely 
loud. 

CXLIII. 

A ruin — yet what ruin! From its mass 
128© Walls, palaces, half -cities, have been rear'd; 



CHILDE HAEOLD 31 3 

Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, 
And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. 
Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared? 
Alas! developed, opens the decay, 
1285 When the colossal fabric's form is near'd: - 
It will not bear the brightness of the day, 
Which streams too much on all, years, man have reft 
away. 

CXLIV. 

But when the rising moon begins to climb 
Its topmost arch and gently pauses there; 

1290 When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, 
And the low night-breeze waves along the air 
The garland forest, which the gray walls wear 
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head; 
When the light shines serene but doth not glare, 

1295 Then in this magic circle raise the dead : 

Heroes have trod this spot — 't is on their dust ye tread. 



'While stands the Coliseum, Eome shall stand; 

When falls the Coliseum, Eome shall fall; 

And when Eome falls — the World/ From our own 
land 
1300 Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall 

In Saxon times, which we are wont to call 

Ancient; and these three mortal things are still 

On their foundations, and unalter'd all; 

Eome and her Euin past Eedemption's skill, 
1305 The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what 
ye will. 



314 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

CXLVI. 

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — 
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods, 
From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time; 
Looking tranquility, while falls or nods 
1310 Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods 
His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome ! 
Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods 
Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and home 
Of art and piety — Pantheon ! — pride of Eome ! 

cxlvii. 
1315 Eelic of nobler days and noblest arts! 

DespoiPd, yet perfect, with thy circle spreads 
A holiness appealing to all hearts — 
To art a model; and to him who treads 
Eome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds 
1320 Her light through thy sole aperture; to those 
Who worship, here are altars for their beads; 
And they who feel for genius may repose 
Their eyes on honoured forms whose busts around them 
close. 

CXLVIII. 

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light 
1325 What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again! 
Two forms are slowly shadow' d on my sight — 
Two insulated phantoms of the brain: 
It is not so; I see them full and plain — 
An old man, and a female young and fair, 
1330 Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein 

The blood is nectar; — but what doth she there 
With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare? 



CHILDE HAROLD 31 5 



Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, 
Where on the heart and from the heart we took 
55 Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, 
Blest into mother, in the innocent look 
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook 
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives 
Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook 
1340 She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — 

What may the fruit be yet ? — I know not, Cain was 
Eve's. 

CL. 

But here youth offers to old age the food, 
The milk of his own gift : — it is her sire 
To whom she renders back the debt of blood 

1345 Born with her birth. No; he shall not expire 
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire 
Of health and holy feeling can provide 
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher 
Than Egypt's river : — from that gentle side 

1350 Drink, drink and live, old man ! Heaven's realm holds 
no such tide. 



The starry fable of the milky way 

Has not thy story's purity; it is 

A constellation of a sweeter ray, 

And sacred Nature triumphs more in this 

Eeverse of her decree than in the abyss 

Where sparkle distant worlds. Oh, holiest nurse! 

No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss 






316 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source 
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. 

CLII. 

1360 Turn to the Mole which Hadrian reared on high, 
Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, 
Colossal copyist of deformity, 
Whose .traveled phantasy from the far Nile's 
Enormous model doom'd the artist's toils 

1365 . To build for giants, and for his vain earth, 

His shrunken ashes, raise this dome. How smiles 
The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, 
To view the huge design which sprung from such a 
birth! 

CLIII. 

But lo, the dome, the vast and wondrous dome 

1370 To which Diana's marvel was a cell, 

Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb ! 
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell 
The hyaena and the jackal in their shade; 

1375 I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell 

Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd 
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem pray'd ; 

CLIV. 

But thou, of temples old or altars new, 
Standest alone, with nothing like to thee — 
1380 Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. 
Since Zion's desolation, when that He 
Forsook his former city, what could be, 






CHILDE HAEOLD 317 

Of earthly structures, in his honor piled 
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, 
» Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undeflled. 

CLV. 

Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not; 
And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot, 
) Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, 
See thy God face to face as thou dost now 
1395 His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow. 

CLVI. 

Thou movest — but increasing with the advance, 

Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise, 

Deceived by its gigantic elegance; 

Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonise — 

All musical in its immensities ; 

Eich marbles, richer painting, shrines where flame 

The lamps of gold, and haughty dome which vies 

In air with Earth's chief structures, though their 

frame 
Sits on the firm-set ground — - and this the clouds must 

claim. 

CLVII. 

1405 Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break 
To separate contemplation the great whole; 
And as the ocean many bays will make, 



318 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

That ask the eye — so here condense thy soul 
To more immediate objects, and control 
1410 Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart 
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll 
In mighty graduations, part by part, 
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, 



Not by its fault — but thine. Our outward sense 

1415 Is but of gradual grasp : and as it is 

That what we have of feeling most intense 
Outstrips our faint expression; even so this 
Outshining and overwhelming edifice 
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great 

1420 Defies at first our Nature's littleness, 

Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate 
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate. 



Then pause> and be enlightened; there is more 
In such a survey than the sating gaze 

1425 Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore 
The worship of the place, or the mere praise 
Of art and its great masters, who could raise 
What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan; 
The fountain of sublimity displays 

1430 Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man 
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. 



Or, turning to the Vatican, go see 
Laocoon's torture dignifying pain — 



CHILDE HAEOLD 319 

A father's love and mortal's agony 
1435 With an immortal's patience blending. Vain 
The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain 
And gripe and deepening of the dragon's grasp, 
The old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain 
Eivets the living links, the enormous asp 
1440 Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. 

CLXI. 

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, 
The God of life and poesy and light, — 
The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight; 
1445 The shaft hath iust been shot — the arrow bright 
With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye 
And nostril beautiful disdain and might 
And majesty flash their full lightnings by, 
Developing in that one glance the Deity. 

clxii. 

1450 But in his delicate form — a dream of Love, 
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast 
Long'd for a deathless lover from above 
And madden'd in that vision — are exprest 
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd 

1455 The mind with in its most unearthly mood, 

When each conception was a heavenly guest — ■ 
A ray of immortality — and stood, 
Starlike, around, until they gather' d to a god ! 

CLXIII. 

And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven 
1460 The fire which we endure, it was repaid 



320 SHOKTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

By him to whom the energy was given 
Which this poetic marble hath array'd 
With an eternal glory — which, if made 
By human hands, is not of human thought ; 
1465 And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid 
One ringlet in the dust; nor hath it caught 
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 
't was wrought. 



But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, 
The being who upheld it through the past ? 

d Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. 
He is no more — these breathings are his last ; 
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, 
And he himself as nothing : — if he was 
Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd 

5 With forms which live and suffer — let that pass — 
His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass, 



Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all 
That we inherit in its mortal shroud, 
And spreads the dim and universal pall 

1480 Through which all things grow phantoms; and the 
cloud 
Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd, 
Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays 
A melancholy halo scarce allowed 
To hover on the verge of darkness ; — rays 

1485 Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, 



CHILDE HAKOLD 321 



And send us prying into the 
To gather what we shall be when the frame 
Shall be resolved to something less than this 
Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame, 
3 And wipe the dust from off the idle name 
We never more shall hear, — but never more, 
Oh, happier thought ! can we be made the same : 
It is enough in sooth that once we bore 
These fardels of the heart — the heart whose sweat was 
gore. 

clxvii. 

5 Hark ! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, 
A long low distant murmur of dread sound, 
Such as arises when a nation bleeds 
With some deep and immedicable wound; 
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending 
ground ; 

) The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief 

Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd; 
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief 
She clasps a babe to whom her breast yields no relief. 



Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? 

1505 Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? 
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low 
Some less majestic, less beloved head? 
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, 
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, 

1510 Death hush'd that pang for ever; with thee fled 



322 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

The present happiness and promised joy 
Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy. 

CLXIX. 

Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, 
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored! 

5 Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, 
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard 
Her many griefs for One; for she had pour'd 
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head 
Beheld her Iris. — Thou, too, lonely lord, 

) And desolate consort — vainly wert thou wed ! 
The husband of a year ! the father of the dead ! 



Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; 

Thy bridal's fruit is ashes; in the dust 

The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid, 

^25 The love- of millions ! How we did intrust 

Futurity to her ! and, though it must - . 

Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd 
Our children should obey her child, and bless'd 
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd 

1530 Like stars to shepherds' eyes : — 't was but a meteor 
beam'd. 

CLXXI. 

Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: 
The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue 
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, 
Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung 
1535 Its knell in princely ears till the o'er-stung 



CHILDE HAEOLD 323 

Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate 
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung 
Against their blind omnipotence a weight 
Within the opposing scale which crushes soon or late, — 



) These might have been her destiny; but no, 
Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, 
Good without effort, great without a foe; 
But now a bride and mother — and now there! 
How many ties did that stern moment tear! 

» From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast 
Is linked the electric chain of that despair, 
Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest 
The land which loved thee so that none could love thee 
best. 

CLXSIII. 

Lo,-Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills 

> So far, that the uprooting wind which tears 
The oak from his foundation, and which spills 
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears 

Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares 
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; — 

> And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears 
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, 

All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. 



And near Albano's scarce divided waves 

Shine from a sister valley; and afar 

The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 



324 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, 
'Arms and the Man/ whose re-ascending star 
Eose o'er an empire : but beneath thy right 
Tully reposed from Eome; and where yon bar 
1565 Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight 

The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight. 

CLXXV. 

But I forget. — My Pilgrim's shrine is won, 
And he and I must part — so let it be : 
His task and mine alike are nearly done; 

1570 Yet once more let us look upon the sea; 
The midland ocean breaks on him and me, 
And from the Alban Mount we now behold 
Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we 
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold 

1575 Those waves, we f ollow'd on till the dark Euxine roil'd 

CLXXVI. 

Upon the blue Symplegades. Long years — 
Long, though not very many — since have done 
Their work on both; some suffering and some tears 
Have left us nearly where we had begun: 
1580 Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run; 
We have had our reward, and it is here, — 
That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, 
And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear 
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. 

OLXXVII. 

1585 Oh that the Desert were my dwelling-place, 
With one fair Spirit for my minister, 



CHILDE HAEOLD 325 

That 1 might all forget the human race, 
And, hating no one, love but only her ! 
Ye Elements, in whose ennobling stir 
) I feel myself exalted, can ye not 
Accord me such a being? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot, 
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot ? 

OLXXVIII. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
5 There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes, 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : 
I love not Man the less, but Nature more, 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
3 From all I may be or have been before, 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal, 

CLXXIX. 

Eoll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 

5 Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 

o He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncofnn'd, and unknown. 

CLXXX. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 



326 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 
1615 For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay, 
1620 And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. 

clxxxi. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
1625 Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee and arbiter of war, — 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar. 

clxxxii. 

1630 Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — ■ 
Assyria, Greece, Eome, Carthage, what are they? 
Thy waters washed them power while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay 

1635 Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play; 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow; 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

CLXXXIII. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
1640 Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, 



CHILDE HAEOLD 327 

Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
1645 Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime 

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone 
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

CLXXXIV. 

And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 

1650 Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy 
I wanton'd with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror — 't was a pleasing fear, 
For I was as it were a child of thee, 

1655 And trusted to thy billows far and near, 

And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do her&. 

CLXXXV. 

My task is done — my song hath ceased — my theme 

Has died into an echo; it is fit 

The spell should break of this protracted dream. 

1660 The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit 

My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ, — 
Would it were worthier ! but I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions flit 
Less palpably before me — and the glow 

1665 Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. 

CLXXXVI. 

Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger ; — yet — farewell ! 



328 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Ye, who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene 
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell 
1670 A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 
A single recollection, not in vain 
He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell; 
Farewell ! with him alone may rest the pain, 
If such there were — with you, the moral of his strain ! 

THE PEISONEE OF CHILLON. 

NOTES. 

The Castle of Chillon completes the picturesque beauty of the 
crescent-shaped Lake of Geneva. The bright blue waters of the 
lake are surrounded by steep mountains, the lower slopes of which 
are vine-covered, while the summits cut the air in fantastic forms. 
At the end of the lake, the valley of the Rhone opens toward 
higher peaks, dimly seen and flashing with snow. The serrated 
Dent du Midi, however, closes the view from most points. The 
white castle, satisfying all ideals of a castle aroused by fairy-tale 
and romance, stands on a little island so close to the shore that 
it appears to project into the lake. People were apparently im- 
prisoned here as early as the ninth century. Francois Bonivard, 
whose name Byron erroneously spelled Bonnivard, lived in the six- 
teenth century. Byron did not know much about him when he 
wrote the poem. He said later : "When this poem was composed, 
I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I 
should have endeavored to dignify the subject by an attempt to 
celebrate his courage and his virtues." 

The real Bonivard began life as a Roman Catholic and inher- 
ited from an uncle a rich priory near the city of Geneva, that 
carried with it the title of prior. He became, however, a reformer 
and an ardent republican. "As soon as I began to read the history 
of nations," he wrote, "I felt drawn by a strong preference for 
republics, the interests of which I always espoused." The Duke 
of Savoy opposed the liberties of Geneva, and Bonivard, especially 
in 1519, helped to defend the city from his attacks. In 1530 he fell 
for the second time into the power of the Duke, who imprisoned 
him in Chillon for six years. During the first two years he had 
fairly comfortable quarters ; then "the Duke visited Chillon, and 
. . . . the Captain thrust me into a cell lower than the lake, 
where I lived four years. I had so little space for walking that 
I wore in the rock which was the pavement a little path or track 






THE PEISONEE OF CHILLON: NOTES 329 

as if it had been made with a hammer." After Bonivard's release 
he lived many years as an honored and respected citizen of Geneva. 
It is said that in private life he was far from being an admirable 
man ; but he was certainly a person of patriotic zeal and intel- 
lectual power. In the bitter religious strife that prevailed, during 
those Reformation days, he seems to have striven to reconcile par- 
ties. He writes in one excellent passage : "Both factions boast 
of preaching Christ Crucified : and we tell the truth : for we leave 
Him crucified and naked upon the Tree of the Cross, and we play 
at dice at the foot of that Cross to know who will have His 
vestments." 

See an article entitled "The True Story of the Prisoner of Chil- 
lon" in The Nineteenth Century, May, 1900. 

Byron's name is carved on the southern side of the third column 
in the dungeon, but it is not certain that he carved it himself. 
The fifth column is that to which Bonivard is said to have been 
chained. 

Line 3. In a single night: "Ludovico Sforza and others. The 
same is asserted of Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis Sixteenth, 
though not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the 
same effect. To such, and not to fear, this change in hers was to 
be attributed." Byron. 

11. My father's faith: The whole tenor of this passage suggests 
that Bonivard was a victim of religious persecution. But the real 
Bonivard was imprisoned for political reasons. 

17. ~We were seven, etc. Note the increase in solemnity due to 
the change from the iambic to the trochaic movement. 

27. There are seven pillars, etc.: There are electric lights in 
the dungeon now ! What sort of mould is a "Gothic mould" ? 

31. A sunbeam: Of the effect of this sunlight Mr. Neaf in his 
Guide to the Castle of Chillon writes : "This is really so : Bonivard, 
from the spot where he was chained, could, perhaps, never get an 
idea of the loveliness and variety of radiating light which the 
sunbeams shed at different hours of the day. In the morning this 
light is of luminous and transparent shining, which the curves of 
the vaults send back all along the hall. During the afternoon the 
hall assumes a much deeper and warmer coloring, and the blue 
transparency of the morning disappears ; but at eventide, after 
the sun has set behind the Jura, the scene changes to the deep 
glow of fire." 

73. The youngest: This picture suggests in one or two points 
Shelley's portrait of Lionel, in his poem, Rosalind and Helen. 

82. A polar day: Analyze the pathos and beauty of this figure. 

103. A hunter of the hills: The description of the elder brother 
reminds us that we are in Switzerland. 

107. Lake Leman: Another name for the Lake of Geneva. 

109. Its massy waters meet and flow: Ruskin applauds the 
perfect truth of each word in this line. The water is really about 



330 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

eight hundred feet deep beside the castle walls. See Modern 
Painters, Part IV, ch. 1, sec. 9. 

160. Earth: Parse the word. 

185. Unmixed with such: With such horrors. Study in the fol- 
lowing passage the effect of restrained pathos, culminating in the 
agony which gives the prisoner strength to burst his chains and 
rush to the side of his dead brother. 

227. I Jcnoic not why: Can you explain the reason for the 
break in the metre? 

231. It is interesting to compare the description of prison life in 
Silvio Pellico's My Prisons, in the story of Dr. Manette as told in 
Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, and the pictures of imprisonment in 
Russia given in the Memoirs of Prince Kropotkin, the Russian Rev- 
olutionist. 

238. Shruoless crags ivithin the mist: What does "shrubless" 
add to this figure? What "within the mist"? 

247. A stirless oreath: This section presents the heart of the 
prisoner's agony. Wby is it so brief? 

284. A visitant from Paradise: "The souls of the Blessed are 
supposed by some to animate green birds in the fields of Paradise." 

294. A solitary cloud: Is this gentle simile appropriate here? 
Why did not Byron add another simile of horror like the preceding? 

331. The quiet of a loving eye: "Compare Wordsworth, in A 
Poet's Epitaph: 'The harvest of a quiet eye.' Byron had satirized 
Wordsworth severely in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 
He later regretted his stricture and by such lines as these 
acknowledged a poetic debt." Thomas. The poetry which Byron 
wrote during 1816, the year of this poem, reflects the joint influ- 
ence of Wordsworth and Shelley. 

332. Remember the gloom to which his eyes have so long been 
accustomed. Note what arrests his eye. First the snow-mountains, 
then the lake, then the little town, then the island, on which his 
thought rests lovingly, and then the happy free creatures in wave 
and air. 

341. A little isle: "Between the entrance of the Rhone and 
Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small island ; the only 
one I could perceive in my voyage round and over the lake, within 
its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not over three), 
and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect 
upon the view." — E. H. Coleridge. 

378. A hermitage: Cf. Lovelace's To Althea in Prison: — 

Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

That for a hermitage. 

381. With spiders: Byron's prisoner is not the only one who 
has found this possible. See Silvio Pellico. 



CHILDE HAROLD: CANTO III: NOTES 33^ 

CHILDE HAROLD: CANTO III. 

NOTES. 

"So that this application (of thought) might ohlige you to think 
of something else ; there is truly no other remedy except time." — 
Letter of the King of Prussia to D'Alembert. 

This canto was begun in May and finished in June, 1816, at 
Ouchy in Switzerland. Byron and Shelley were together at the 
time, and the canto shows clear traces of Shelley's influence. 

Stanza I. My fair child: The Honorable Ada Augusta Byron, 
the poet's daughter, was born in 1815. She developed unusual abil- 
ity in mathematics and metaphysics. Like her father, she died in 
her thirty-seventh year, leaving a request that her coffin be placed 
by his. Byron wrote these lines after separation from his wife. 

Stanza III. The furrows of long thought: The elaborate metaphor 
should be analyzed. The allusion in the first line of the stanza is 
to the earlier cantos of Childe Harcld. 

Stanza VI. After the rather empty rhetoric of the first stanzas 
comes this passage, which sincerely transcribes the experience of 
the creative artist. The "soul of my thought" is his artistic 
impulse. 

Stanza VIII. Harold is a transparent disguise for Byron. Carlyle 
pokes fun at passages like this opening stanza, and at the "Satanic 
school," as he labels Byron and his followers : 

"To our less philosophical readers, ... it is now clear that the 
so passionate Teufelsdrockh, precipitated through "a shivered uni- 
verse" in this extraordinary way, has only one of three things 
which he can next do : Establish himself in Bedlam ; begin writing 
Satanic Poetry ; or blow-out his brains. . . . Nowise so does 
Teufelsdrockh deport him. He quietly lifts his Pilgerstab (Pilgrim- 
staff) . . . and begins a perambulation and circumambulation 
of the terraqueous globe. ... He was meek, silent, or spoke 
of the weather and the Journals ; only by a transient knitting 
of those shaggy brows . . . might you have guessed what a 
Gehenna was within ; that a whole Satanic School were spouting, 
though inaudibly, there. To consume your own choler, as some 
chimneys consume their own smoke ; to keep a whole Satanic School 
spouting, if it must spout, inaudibly, is a negative, yet no slight 
virtue, nor one of the commonest in these times." — Sartor Resartus, 
Book II., Chapter VI. 

Stanza XIV. Like the Chaldean: The Chaldeans were famous 
as astrologers. 

Stanza XVII. The first part of the canto has been filled with 
meditations on Byron's personal sorrows, either in his own person 
or in that of his hero. Now, he begins comment on his travels, 
and first commemorates the field of Waterloo. Here, hardly a 
year before, the Duke of Wellington and the Powers allied with 



332 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

England had finally defeated Napoleon and so put an end to the 
ten years' despotism which had changed the map of Europe. There 
was as yet no monument to mark the site of the battle; a mound 
surmounted by the Belgian Lion was erected by William I of Hol- 
land in 1823. 

Stanza XVIII. Pride of place is a term of falconry, meaning 
the highest pitch of flight. See Macbeth: 

"An eagle towering in her pride of place 
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and killed." 

— Byron. 
For the correct form of the quotation, see Macbeth, Act II, 
scene IV, line 12. 

Byron copied these first two stanzas in a lady's album in Brus- 
sels. The central lines of the second then ran : 

Here his last flight the haughty eagle flew, 
Then tore with bloody beak the fatal plain. 

The poet was impelled to alter the lines by seeing an illustra- 
tion of them drawn by a Mr. Reinagle, representing "a spirited 
chained eagle grasping the earth with his talons." Byron wrote : 
"Reinagle is a better poet and a better ornithologist than I am. 
Eagles and all birds of prey attack with their talons and not with 
their beaks." The eagle is, of course, the imperial eagle of Napoleon. 
Stanza XIX. See the Introduction for an explanation of the 
tone of this passage. Compare Shelley's Sonnet, Feelings of a 
Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte: 

I know 
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, 
That Virtue owns a more eternal foe 
Than Force or Fraud : old Custom, legal Crime, 
And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of Time. 

Stanza XX. Last line : Hippias and Hipparchus, the sons of 
Pisistratus, were the tyrants of Athens in B. C. 514. Two friends, 
Harmodius and Aristogiton, assassinated them at the Festival of 
Athena, having concealed their daggers in festive boughs of myrtle. 
The old Greek poem on the exploit ran : 

I'll wreathe my sword in myrtle-bough, 
The sword that laid the tyrant low, 
When patriots burning to be free 
To Athens gave equality. 

See for a description of an imaginary relief referring to the 
event, Browning's Pippa Passes, Act II. 

Stanza XXI. This famous Ball was given by the Duchess of 
Richmond at Brussels, on the fifteenth of June, the eve of the 
battle. Thackeray has made effective use of it in Vanity Fair. 



CHILDE HAEOLD: CANTO III: NOTES 333 

Stanza XXIII. Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick, died in 
the front of the line almost in the beginning of the battle. His 
father had been killed in the battle of Jena in 1806. 

Stanza XXVI. The Scotch troops fought valiantly at Waterloo. 
Sir Evan Campbell fought on the Royalist side against Cromwell 
in the seventeenth century. His grandson, Lochiel, also an adherent 
of the ill-fated Stuarts, was wounded at Culloden in 1746. A great- 
great-grandson in command of the Highlanders was killed at 
Waterloo. 

Stanza XXVII. Byron was mistaken in thinking that the wood 
of Soignies, on the site of the battle, was the traditional Forest 
of Arden. 

Stanza XXIX. And partly that I did his sire some wrong. 
Major Frederick Howard was the son of the Earl of Carlisle, 
Byron's guardian, whom the poet had satirized in English Bards 
end Scotch Revietoers. 

Stanza XXX. The spot where Major Howard died was in 
Byron's day near two tall, solitary trees. Byron says that this 
battlefield "seems marked out for the scene of some great action, 
though this may be mere imagination : I have viewed with atten- 
tion those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Chaeronea, and Mara- 
thon ; and the field around Mont St. Jean and Hougoumont appears 
to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but im- 
pressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated 
spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except, perhaps, 
the last mentioned." 

Stanzas XXXVI-XLI. These reflections on the character of 
Napoleon gain fresher interest when we realize that while Byron 
wrote them, Napoleon was in exile at St. Helena. 

Stanza XLI. "The great error of Napoleon, 'if we have writ our 
annals true,' was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want 
of all community of feeling for or with them ; perhaps more offensive 
to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and 
suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies 
as well as individuals ; and the single expression which he is said 
to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had 
destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, 'This is pleas- 
anter than Moscow,' would probably alienate more favor from his 
cause than the destruction and reverses which led to the remark." — 
Byron. 

Philip's son: Alexander the Great, who held his power partly 
by his suavity and adaptability. 

Stanza XLV. These figures are naturally suggested by the Swiss 
country in which Byron was living. 

Stanza XLVI. The poet has now reached in his travels the 
famous banks of the Rhine, then as now covered with vineyards, 
and dotted with ruined castles. 

Stanza LV. The lyric interpolated in this stanza is probably 



334 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

addressed to his half-sister, Lady Augusta Lee. It was written on 
the banks of the Rhine, May, 1816. 

Drachenfels, "The Dragon's Rock" is the highest summit of the 
seven mountains which rise above the Rhine. There is a legend 
that Siegfried's dragon lived in one of the caves. The wine of 
the country is therefore called dragon's blood. 

Stanza LVI. Honor to Marceau: Marceau was a young French 
general, killed on the last day of the fourth year of the French 
Republic. His enemies as well as his friends admired his gallantry 
and wept over him, and his funeral was attended by officers from 
both armies. 

Stanza LVIII. Ehrenoreitstein (the broad stone of honor), 
opposite Coblentz, was one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. 
It was blown up by the French after a long siege in 1799. 

Stanza LXIII. Morat ! the proud, the patriot field: a spot east 
of the lake of Neuchatel, where Charles the Bold was defeated by 
the Swiss, June, 1476. More than 20,000 Burgundians are said to 
have been killed in this battle. 

Stanza LXIV. Cannae: Scene of the great battle in 216 B. C, 
when Hannibal defeated the Roman army. Marathon: Scene of the 
great battle between Greeks and Persians, B. C. 490. Draconic: 
Draco was author of the first code of written laws at Athens. 
They were extremely severe. 

Stanza LXV. A lonelier column: A solitary Corinthian column, 
left from the temple of Apollo, stands near the town of Aventicum 
(modern Avenches), which was the Roman capital of Helvetium. 

Stanza LXVI. Julia was a young Aventian priestess who died 
after a vain endeavor to save her father. Unluckily, the epitaph 
which so moved Byron was really a forgery of a sixteenth cen- 
tury scholar. 

Stanza LXVII. "This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 
3d, 1816), which even at this distance dazzles mine. — (July 20th) 
I this day observed for some time the distant reflection of Mont 
Blanc and Mont Argentiere in the calm of the lake, which I was 
crossing in my boat ; the distance of these mountains from their 
mirror is sixty miles." — Byron. 

Stanza LXXI. The arrowy Rhone: "The color of the Rhone 
at Geneva is blue, to a depth of tint which I have never seen 
equalled in water, salt or fresh, except in the Mediterranean and 
Archipelago." — Byron. 

Cf. a wonderful description of the "blue rushing" in Ruskin's 
Praeterita. 

"The Rhone flows like one lambent jewel ; its surface is nowhere, 
its ethereal self is everywhere, the iridescent rush and translucent 
strength of it blue to the shore, — and radiant to the depth. Fif- 
teen feet thick, of not flowing but flying water, not water, 
neither, — melted glacier rather one should call it, the force of 



CHILDE HAKOLD: CANTO III: NOTES 335 

the ice is with it and the wreathing of the clouds, the gladness 
of the sky and the continuance of Time." 

Stanzas LXXVI-LXXXIV. These stanzas contain Byron's char- 
acter-study of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the famous Swiss writer of 
the eighteenth century. Rousseau's writings aroused enthusiasm 
for a return to more natural modes of thought and feeling. His 
theories of social equality played an important part in creating 
the Republics of the United States and of France. See Rousseau, 
by John Morley. The scene of Rousseau's novel, La Nouvelle 
Heloise, is the shores of the Lake of Geneva. Byron and Shelley 
read the book and visited the sites it mentions, together. 

Byron was evidently chiefly impressed by the element of passion 
in the writings of Rousseau. In the eighty-first and eighty-second 
stanzas, however, he does justice to the power of Rousseau's intel- 
lectual conceptions. 

Stanza LXXXII. A concise statement of Byron's estimate of 
the French Revolution. Compare that of Shelley, as given in the 
preface to The Revolt of Islam. 

Stanzas LXXXIII-LXXXIV. Byron wrote in 1822 : "The king- 
times are finishing. There will be blood shed like water and tears 
like mist : but the Peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not 
live to see it, but I foresee it." 

Stanzas LXXXVII-XCVI. This passage is one of the most 
famous of Byron's descriptions of Nature. Stanzas LXXXVIII- 
XCII are intended to be full of solemn calm, and are dramatically 
contrasted with the following stanzas, which seek to render the 
sublimity of the storm. Byron wrote this passage among glorious 
scenery. He was also at this time strongly under the influence 
of Wordsworth and Shelley, and had moreover been re-reading 
with enthusiasm the work of Rousseau, who had helped to create 
in Europe a new sympathy with Nature. 

Stanza LXXXIX. The sentiment of the latter part of this 
stanza is tinged with the pantheism common to the nature-poetry 
of this period. 

Stanza XG. Cytherea's zone was the magic girdle of "Venus, 
which endowed any one who wore it with irresistible charm. 

Stanza XCI. "It is to be recollected that the most beautiful 
and impressive doctrines of the Divine Founder of Christianity 
were delivered not in the TEMPLE but on the MOUNT. . . . 
It is one thing to read the Iliad at Sigaeum and on the tumuli, 
or by the springs with Mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers 
and Archipelago around you, and quite another to trim your taper 
over it in a snug library — this I KNOW. Were the early and 
rapid progress of what is called Methodism to be attributed to any 
cause beyond the enthusiasm excited by its vehement faith and 
doctrines, I should venture to ascribe it to the practice of preach- 
ing in the fields." — Byron. 



336 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Stanza XCII. "The thunder storm to which these lines refer 
occurred on the thirteenth of June, 1816, at midnight. I have 
seen among the Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari several more 
terrible but none more beautiful." — Byron. 

Stanza XCIII. Note the strong sense of revelling in the tumult 
of Nature. Such enthusiasm was as natural to Byron as a quiet 
joy in Nature's calmer aspects was to Wordsworth. 

Stanza XCIV. The critics agree that Byron borrowed this fine 
metaphor from the second part of Coleridge's Christaoel, where 
Coleridge describes the alienation of two friends : 

But never either found another 
To free the hollow heart from paining — 
They stood aloof, the scars remaining 
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ; 

A dreary sea now flows between, 
But neither heat nor frost nor thunder 

Shall wholly do away, I ween, 
The marks of that which once hath been. 

Stanza XCIX. "In July, 1816, I made a voyage round the Lake 
of Geneva ; and as far as my own observations have led me in a 
not uninterested nor inattentive survey of all the scenes most 
celebrated by Rousseau in his 'Heloise,' I can safely say, that in 
this there is no exaggeration. It would be difficult to see Clarens 
(with the scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Boveret, St. Gingo, Meil- 
lerie, Eivan, and the entrances of the Rhone) without being forcibly 
struck with its peculiar adaptation to the persons and events with 
which it has been peopled. But this is not all : the feeling with 
which all around Clarens, and the opposite rocks of Meillerie, is 
invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive order than the 
mere sympathy with individual passion ; it is a sense of the exist- 
ence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our 
own participation of its good and of its glory : it is the great prin- 
ciple of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less 
manifested ; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose 
our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole. If Rous- 
seau had never written, nor lived, the same associations would not 
less have belonged to such scenes. He has added to the interest of his 
works by their adoption ; he has shown his sense of their beauty 
by the selection ; but they have done that for him which no human 
being could do for them." — Byron. 

Stanzas CV-CVII. In these stanzas, Byron gives a character 
sketch of two famous men of the preceding age : Voltaire, the 
French critic and skeptic, who lived for many years at Ferney, 
near Geneva ; and Gibbon, the English historian, who in 1788 fin- 
ished his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire at Lausanne on 
the site of the hotel now called by his name. 



CHILDE HAEOLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 337 



Stanza CX. The fierce Carthaginian: Hannibal. 
Stanza CXIII. Had I not filed my mind: 



"If it be thus, 
For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind." 

— Macbeth. 

CHILDE HAEOLD: CANTO IV. 

NOTES. 

Byron wrote one hundred and thirty stanzas of this canto at 
white heat in thirty-three days after his return to Venice from a 
six-weeks' trip to Ferrara, Florence, and Rome, in the spring of 
1817. 

If the reader would share the emotion of the opening stanza he 
should know something of the history and art of Venice. Good 
books to consult are Horatio Brown's Venice: an Historical Sketch, 
and T. Okey's The Story of Venice. Ruskin's great book, The 
Stones of Venice, though not to be trusted as formal history, is 
full of splendid passages. Merely to turn its pages is to realize 
how slightly Byron touched on the treasures of the city. 

Venice was founded by country-folk who fled from the invasion 
of the Huns under Attila in the fifth century, taking refuge on the 
little islands in the lagoon. Her power rose to its height in the 
fifteenth century, when she was the mistress of wide possessions 
to the east of her, in Dalmatia, the Grecian isles, and the Levant. 
Her magnificent art coincided with the height of her power and 
with the early stages of her decline. She remained a free Republic 
till 1797, when Napoleon put an end to her liberties and abolished 
the office of Doge. From that date to 1805 she was under the 
power of Austria. From 1805 till 1814 she belonged to Napoleon's 
Kingdom of Italy. She then passed again under Austrian domin- 
ion, and was, when Byron wrote, still subjected to this unendurable 
ignominy, which continued until the union and independence of 
Italy were consummated in 1866. These brief statements will 
explain many allusions in the text. 

Stanza I. The Bridge of Sighs spans with a single covered arch 
the narrow canal between the Palace of the Doges, well described 
by Ruskin, and the old city dungeon. 

The winged Lion's marole piles: St. Mark's Lion, the emblem 
of Venice, still looks proudly out from a column in the Piazza in 
front of St. Mark's Church, with St. Theodore and his crocodile 
as a pendant. 



338 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Stanza II. A sea Cybele: Byron borrowed this figure from 
Sabellicus, an Italian writer of the Renaissance. Cybele, the 
mother of the gods, was represented as crowned with towers. Her 
name is usually accented on the first syllable, but there is some 
authority for Byron's use, which he probably caught from the 
Italian pronunciation, which accents the penult. 

Stanza III. Tasso's echoes: "The wellrknown song of the Gon- 
doliers, of alternate stanzas from Tasso's Jerusalem, has died with 
the independence of Venice." So Byron's fellow-traveler, Hobhouse, 
annotates this line. 

Crumbling to the shore: One of these palaces has now been 
carried away piecemeal from the Grand Canal, and forms part of 
Mrs. Jack Gardner's Museum at Fenway Court, Boston. See also 
note on line 114. 

The masque of Italy: Masque here means carnival, festivity. 

Stanza IV. The Rialto, etc.: The Rialto is the famous bridge 
across the Grand Canal. Shylock and the Moor need no explana- 
tion. But alas for Byron's proud faith in literary immortality ! 
How many people can identify Pierre without a note? He is a 
character in Otway's Venice Preserved. That Byron makes his 
name a monosyllable is an evidence of the provincialism of educated 
Englishmen in his day. 

Stanza VI. This worn feeling: The phrase is loosely used. ' The 
antecedent is that sentiment which is the theme of the last stanza. 

Our fairy-land of the imagination is contrasted, first, with his- 
toric memories, then with personal experience. 

Stanza VII. Are now but so: Parse "but so," if possible. 

Stanza VIII. The inviolate island of the sage and free: Byron's 
hurt resentment against England breathes through these stanzas ; 
yet his unwilling tribute to her in this line ranks with the best 
expressions of patriotism in her literature. 

Stanza IX. In a soil which is not mine: The poet's tempestuous 
spirit knew many moods. On another occasion he wrote to a 
friend : "I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, 
or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the 
thought would drive me mad on my death-bed — I would not even 
feed your worms if I could help it." 

Stanza X. The temple ichere the dead are honor'd: Not "dull 
oblivion" but the protest of the authorities debarred Byron from 
burial in Westminster Abbey. 

The Spartan's epitaph: The answer made by the mother of 
Brasidas, the Spartan general, to those who praised her son. This 
stanza has the manly ring which atones for much of Byron's 
egotism and lack of self-discipline. 

Stanza XI. The spouseless Adriatic: Stanzas V to IX have 
formed an interlude. The poet now returns to Venice. This stanza 
is full of allusions. The Bucentaur was the barge in which the 
Doge annually sailed out into the Lagoon, that he might throw a 



CHILDE HAEOLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 339 

ring into the sea in token of Venice's supremacy over the waters. 
St. Mark's Lion, like many other treasures, was carried to Paris by 
Napoleon, but was afterwards restored. The Piazza where it stands 
was the scene of the submission of the Emperor Frederick Bar- 
barossa to Pope Alexander III in 1177, a central episode in the 
long mediaeval struggle between the Papacy and the Empire. 
Frederick was of the House of Suabia. 

Wordsworth's Sonnet On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic 
is an admirable companion to these stanzas : 

Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee ; 

And was the safeguard of the west : the worth 

Of Venice' did not fall below her birth, 
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty. 

She was a maiden City, bright and free ; 

No guile seduced, no force could violate ; 

And, when she took unto herself a Mate, 
She must espouse the everlasting Sea. 

And what if she had seen those glories fade, 
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay ; 

Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid 
When her long life hath reached its final day : 

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade 
Of that which once was great, is passed away. 

Stanza XII. These stanzas give an indignant and accurate pic- 
ture of the situation of Italy. That which Wordsworth contem- 
plates with philosophic sorrow, as a finality, stirs Byron to a wrath 
charged with rebellion. 

Lamcine: A German word for avalanche. The word "ava- 
lanche" was not yet acclimated in English when Byron wrote. 

Blind old Dandolo: Commander-in-chief of the Venetians at the 
taking of Constantinople in the last decade of the twelfth century. 
He was eighty-five years old at the time. 

Stanza XIII. His steeds of brass still ramp proudly above the 
portal of the Church of St. Mark. They were brought from Con- 
stantinople by Dandolo. 

Are they not bridled: The allusion is to legendary history, 
which tells that when the Venetians in 1379 were overcome by 
the armies of Genoa and Padua, they sent an embassy entreating 
that their city be allowed to retain her independence. The Genoese 
sent back answer through their general, Pietro Doria : "On God's 
faith, gentlemen of Venice, ye shall have no peace . . . until 
we have first put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, that 
are upon the porch of your evangelist, St. Mark." Modern research 
does not support the authenticity of the story. 

Sinks, like a sea-iveed: Critics discuss whether Byron be think- 
ing of the encroachments of the literal sea or of the moral decline 



340 SHOBTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

of the city. Why not of the second under figure of the first? The 
passage in its literal meaning received a striking illustration when 
the Campanile, one of the oldest buildings in the city, fell into ruins 
in 1902. See a beautiful passage parallel to this in Shelley's Lines 
Written Among the Euganean Hills: 

Sun-girt city, thou hast been 
Ocean's child, and then his queen : 
Now has come a darker day, 

And thou soon must be his prey. 

Read also the splendid tribute to Byron a little later in the same 
poem. 

Stanza XIV. A new Tyre: Consult the description of this great 
commercial city of the ancient world, in Ezekiel, XXVI-XXVIII. 

The 'Planter of the Lion': Byron here relies on a probably false 
etymology. The Venetians were nicknamed Pantaloni ; but the 
real origin of the term, which is the source of our "pantaloon" 
and of the Italian name for a clown, is now thought to have been 
the baptismal name "Pantaleone," frequently given to Venetian 
children in honor of St. Pantaleone, whose cult was common in 
Northern Italy. 

The Ottomite: The Turk. 

Troy's rival, Candia: In 1G69, Candia, an island on the coast 
of Crete, was lost to Venice after a defense which had lasted 
twenty-five years. 

Lepanto's fight: This naval battle against the Turks was won 
by the Venetians and their allies in 1570. 

Stanza XVI. When Athens' armies, etc.: See Plutarch's Life of 
Nicias and Browning's Balaustion's Adventure. In the fifth cen- 
tury B. C. the dramas of Euripides were so popular throughout 
Sicily that Athenian prisoners who could recite them were especially 
favored by their masters. 

Stanza XVII. The Ocean queen, etc.: Would this argument 
appeal to the practical statesman? On the other hand, is the 
appeal of Byron in the last stanza based on the highest ground? 

Stanza XVIII. I loved her from my boyhood: Byron wrote to 
John Murray : "Venice pleases me as much as I expected, and I 
expected much. It is one of those places which I know before I see 
them, and has always haunted me the most after the East." 

It is amusing today to find the crudely romantic story, Mrs. Rad- 
cliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, ranked by Byron with the fine though 
now neglected drama, Otway's Venice Preserved, with Schiller's 
Geister-Seer, and with Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. 

Interpret thus. 

Stanza XX. What is the force of Butt Tavmen is the plural of 
Tanne, a fir tree. The Alpine fir, Byron says, "only thrived in 
very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishment 



CHILDE HAKOLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 341 

can be found. On these spots it grows to a greater height than 
any other tree." The propriety of introducing foreign words with 
no quotation marks into the text, as Byron has done here and in 
the case of "lauwine," is questionable. 

Stanzas XX-XXV. Passages like these were in Matthew Arnold's 
mind when he described Byron as parading over Europe "The 
pageant of his bleeding heart," and in Carlyle's mind, when in 
Sartor Resartus he sneered at the practice of crying aloud when one 
is hurt and represented his own suffering hero as "mute, silent, or 
speaking only of the weather or the Journals." 

Stanza XXII. Devotion, toil, war, good, or crime: Which among 
these resources should you say were sought by Byron? 

Stanza XXIII. The power of association is exquisitely sug- 
gested in the following lines. E. H. Coleridge calls attention here 
to Browning's Bishop Blougram's Apology: 

Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch, 
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, 
A chorus-ending from Euripides — 
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears 
As old and new at once as nature's self 
To rap and knock and enter in our soul. 

Stanza XXIV. Note the condensation of thought possible to 
poetic expression : Too many, since we lose and mourn ; how few 
since life at best is very lonely. 

Stanza XXV. Byron now turns from Venice and from the per- 
sonal interlude, to wanderings farther afield. The relation of the 
personal parts of the poem to the impersonal description is indi- 
cated in the opening lines of this stanza, where Byron says that 
he stands "A ruin among ruins." Despite his poetic melancholy, we 
know that he was fairly happy in Italy : and he was still a young 
man in the prime of vigor. 

Stanza XXVI. The commonwealth of kings: One of the best 
things in the poem is Byron's honest enthusiasm for Italy. He 
forgets, when he praises her, his cynicism and his assumed despair ; 
he forgets himself. Compare Shelley's feelings for Italy, as shown 
in his Letters, his Lines Among the Euganean Hills, and elsewhere. 
And compare the feeling of Browning, and of Mrs. Browning. 

Stanza XXVII. This sunset was seen by Byron as he rode one 
evening on the mainland opposite Venice, along the banks of the 
little river Brenta. He says that he saw many another equally 
beautiful, and one who knows Italy can well believe him. English- 
men are less accustomed than Americans to brilliant sunsets. 

Blue Friuli's mountains: The mountains meant are "the Julian 
Alps, which form an arc from behind Trieste to the neighborhood 
of Verona." The same chain, or higher summits beyond, are called 
below "the far Rhsetian hill," that is, the Tyrolese heights. 



342 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Stanza XXVIII. A single star is at her side: Cf. Shelley, who 
describes a similar sunset seen from the Euganean Hills, looking 
down on the city : 

Autumn's evening meets me soon, 
Leading the infantine moon 
And that one star, which to her 
Almost seems to minister 
Half the crimson light she brings 
From the sunset's radiant springs. 

Compare also Coleridge's : 

Horned moon, with one bright star 
Within the nether tip. 

Stanza XXIX. Ruskin objects to the figure of the hues on the 
dying dolphin. He says that only an insensitive nature could have 
used it. Do you agree? Does the dolphin really change hues 
when dying? 

Stanza XXX. We now start with Byron on our travels. First 
we visit Arqua, a hill-village on the southeast slope of Shelley's 
Euganean Hills, between Padua and Ferrara. Here Petrarch spent 
the later years of his life, here he died. His house is adorned 
with charming old frescoes depicting scenes from his poems. It 
is at the top of the town in a fine situation. Petrarch was one 
of the first people in the post-Roman world to prefer country to 
city living. 

To raise a language, etc.: Petrarch, the herald of the Renais- 
sance in Italy, was as strong a patriot as the Italians with whom 
Byron was conspiring for the overthrow of the Austrian. His son- 
nets in the vernacular completed the work begun by Dante's Divine 
Comedy, of establishing Italian among the great languages of 
literature. 

The tree which bears Ms lady's name is of course the laurel. 

Stanza XXXIII. Idlesse: An old word, taken from Spenser, to 
whom Byron owes the stanzaic form of the poem. 

Byron did not really love solitude, as Wordsworth did. But he 
could .sentimentalize over it. 

Stanza XXXIV. Predestined to a doom: This gruesome stanza 
suggests an intermittent terror of Byron's that he was himself 
destined to eternal loss. Although often defiant in religious atti- 
tude, he never quite shook himself free from the older orthodoxy. 
It is noteworthy that solitude suggests to him gloom rather than 
rest and joy. He says : "The struggle is quite as likely to be 
with demons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilder- 
ness for the temptation of Our Saviour. And our unsullied John 
Locke preferred the presence of a child to complete solitude." 



CHILDE HAEOLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 343 

Stanza XXXV. Now we come to Ferrara, a famous center of art 
and letters during the Italian renaissance. See Browning's My 
Last Duchess. The House of Este, patrons of Tasso, who honored 
them in his poetry, long held rule here. 

Stanza XXXVI. It is popularly believed that the Duke Alfonso 
II "because of Tasso's political intrigues and because of his daring 
to love the Duke's sister," Leonora, "had the poet confined as a 
lunatic in a narrow cell. (Cf. Byron's Lament of Tasso, and 
Goethe's Torquato Tasso.) But later authorities assert that this 
confinement was due to the genuine insanity of the poet, and 
Byron's attack here may not be justifiable." — Thomas. 

Stanza XXXVIII. The Cruscan quire: "The Accademia della 
Crusca, established at Florence in 1582, with the object of purifying 
the national language. It censured Tasso's Jerusalem. Quire is 
now commonly spelled choir." — Rolfe. 

Boileau: "The celebrated French critic, who complained that 
the taste of his time preferred the tinsel of Tasso to the gold of 
Virgil." — Rolfe. 

That whetstone of the teeth: It is all very well for Byron to 
sneer cleverly at the heroic couplet endorsed by Boileau. But 
then how explain his avowed preference for the school of Pope? 
He wrote to Gifford that he and all his important contemporaries 
were on the wrong tack and Pope on the right one. 

Stanza XL. The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: Dante and 
Ariosto. We now think Dante to be the Bard of Paradise quite as 
truly as the Bard of Hell. But Byron really did not know much 
about Dante. His comparison of Ariosto to Scott, however, is 
felicitous and just : the first bit of discriminating criticism he has 
given us in his torrent of praise. 

The Ariosto of the North: Byron and Scott admired each other. 
See a generous letter from Byron to the elder poet, written after 
an interview with the Prince Regent in which the Prince had 
warmly praised Scott's poetry to the rising poet who was largely to 
supersede the elder in popularity. 

Stanza XLI. The lightning, etc.: "Before the remains of Tasso 
were removed from the Benedictine church to the library of Fer- 
rara, his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was struck by lightning, 
and a crown of laurels melted away." — Hothouse. 

"Among the Romans it was a superstition that the lightning 
sanctified the objects it struck. Because of this belief the Cur- 
tian lake and the Ruminal fig-tree in the Forum were held sacred." 
— Thomas. 

Stanza XLII. This noble stanza and the next are, Byron tells 
us, a free translation of a sonnet by Filicaja, an Italian poet. 

Stanza XLIII. The stranger's sword: Compare for the senti- 
ment in this whole passage, Browning's Italian in England, and 
Meredith's novels, Sandro Belloni and Emilia in England. Byron 



344 SHOBTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

is only one of many Englishmen whose indignant sympathy fop 
Italy has been expressed in letters and in deeds. 

Stanza XLIV. In a celebrated letter to Cicero, Servius Sul- 
picius tries to console the great orator for the death of his daugh- 
ter Tullia. Parts of the letter describe a route by sea and land 
which Byron often traced. "On my return from Asia," writes 
Sulpicius, "as I was sailing from iEgina towards Megara, I began 
to contemplate the prospects of the countries around me : -ZEgina 
was behind, Megara before me ; Pirseus on the right, Corinth on 
the left ; all which towns once famous and flourishing, now lie over- 
turned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not 
but think presently within myself : Alas ! how do we poor mortals 
fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be 
killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many 
noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view." 

Stanza XLVII. How and when was this prophecy fulfilled? 

Stanza XLVII1. The Etrurian Athens is Florence, situated on 
the river Arno. Byron did not appreciate this city, which today is 
deemed as interesting as Venice or Rome. He stopped there one 
day only, and wrote before he went : "I have not the least curiosity 
about Florence, though I must see it for the sake of the Venus." 
One of the reasons for his attitude was his indifference to painting, 
which is a chief glory of the city of Botticelli and Fra Angelico. 
He wrote : "I know nothing of painting; and I detest it unless it 
reminds me of something I have seen or think it possible to see, 
for which reason I spit upon and abhor all the saints and subjects 
of half the impostures I see in the churches and palaces." Ruskin 
was to rouse Englishmen to a different frame of mind. But Byron 
did feel impressed in the great Florentine galleries, and half 
recanted his heresy. 

Modem Luxury: Byron speaks truly here : Florence owed her 
pre-eminence in arts and letters during the Renaissance to the 
advance in civilization rendered possible by her commercial 
supremacy. 

Stanza XLTX. The goddess loves in stone: The Venus de 
Medici, long the central ornament of the Tribune, or central hall, 
in the Ufiizi, the chief art gallery of Florence. Byron went to 
Florence on purpose to rhapsodize over this famous statue, and he 
does so eloquently. One feels a little suspicion, however, that 
his raptures were partly made to order. He was really more sensi- 
tive to historic memories than to art. Shelley also, fainted with 
ecstasy before the remains of ancient sculpture, while he hardly 
noted the great religious art of the painters before Raphael. 

Stanza L. Chain'd to the chariot: Explain the allusion. 

The Dardan Shepherd's prize: See classical dictionary. 

Stanza LIV. In Santa Croce's holy precincts: Byron does not 
really care anything about Santa Croce. All he had to say about 
it in prose was that it contains "much illustrious nothing." To 



CHILDE HAKOLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 345 

the modern traveler, the precincts are indeed "holy," not on 
account of the famous people buried in the church, which is a 
kind of Italian Westminster Abbey, but on account of its associa- 
tion with the sweetest of mediaeval saints, Francis of Assisi. The 
church contains remarkable frescoes of the early schools, some of 
which celebrate the life and death of St. Francis. It was built 
by his followers. See Ruskin's Mornings in Florence. 

For what was each of these men famous? 

Stanza LV. The elements: Water, air, earth, fire. 

Canova: An Italian sculptor, more highly esteemed in Byron's 
day than in our own. He died in 1822. 

Stanza LVI. Bard of Prose: Boccaccio, author of the 
Decamerone. 

Stanza LVII. Dante is buried in Ravenna. Scipio Africanus 
the Elder gave orders that he [Scipio] was not to be buried in 
Rome, but in the home of his voluntary exile, Liturnum. The 
inscription on his tomb, according to some historians, was : "Un- 
grateful country, you shall not have my ashes." 

Owing to the factions between the Ghibellines and the Guelfs, 
the parties of the Emperor and the Pope, Dante, to the everlasting 
shame of Florence, was exiled from the city. Compare Rossetti's 
beautiful poem, Dante at Verona. 

Stanza LVIII. Boccaccio was buried at his birthplace, Certaldo. 
Later, the religious authorities whom Byron calls "hyaena bigots" 
caused his body to be removed. 

Tuscan's siren tongue: Byron is said to have spoken Italian 
like a native. This is just praise of the language. 

Stanza LIX. Cwsar's pageant: Byron means a pageant decreed 
by Tiberius. At the public funeral of the sister of Brutus and 
wife of Cassius, the busts of her husband and brother were not 
allowed to be carried in the procession because they had conspired 
against Caesar. Yet, says Tacitus, their glory was the more con- 
spicuous in men's minds because their images were withheld. 

Fortress of falling empire: During the barbarian invasions 
Ravenna was a stronghold of the Empire. 

Stanza LX. Byron in this stanza alludes to the tombs of the 
Medici in the Chapel of San Lorenzo at Florence. He wrote to 
Murray : "I also went to the Medici Chapel — fine frippery in great 
slabs of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten 
and forgotten carcasses." 

These lines may suggest the graves of Byron's contemporaries, 
Keats and Shelley, in the seclusion of the English cemetery at Rome. 

Stanza LXI. Where Sculpture, etc.: The reference probably 
is to the great picture galleries at Florence. One likes the honesty 
of the last of the stanza. Byron wrote to Murray : "I never yet 
saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my con- 
ception or expectation ; but I have seen many mountains and seas 
and rivers and views . . . (that) went far beyond it." 



346 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Stanza LXII. Thrqsimene's lake: Macaulay more accurately 
makes only three syllables of this name : 

And dark Verbenna from the hold 

By reedy Thrasimene. — Eoratius, 191. 

The lake is in modern Umbria. It was the scene of a great 
defeat of the Romans at the hands of Hannibal. 

Stanza LXIII. An earthquake, etc.: Livy is the authority for 
this statement. 

A very excellent description of the lake as the tourist today 
sees it. 

Stanza LXVI. But thou, Clitumnus: "No book of travels has 
omitted to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between 
Foligno and Spoleto, and no sight — even in Italy — is more worthy 
a description." — Byron. 

Milk-white steer: The traveler in Umbria and Tuscany is still 
delighted by the beauty of the white oxen and the larger mouse- 
colored ones. Cf. Macaulay's Horatius, 11. 46, 55. For probably 
the first mention, in literature, see Vergil, G-ecrgics, II, 14. 

Stanza LXVII. The finny darter: Do you like this paraphrase 
for a fish? 

Chance: It may chance. 

Stanza LXVIII. Note the etymological sense of disgust, which 
is tastelessness. 

Stanza LXIX. Velino cleaves: One object of Byron's journey 
was to see this famous waterfall of Terni, formed by the Velino 
river. He wrote that he thought it finer than any cataract in the 
Alps, and he spared no pains in the following stanzas. 

Phlegethon: One of the four rivers of Hades. The figure is well 
sustained. Byron had shown in Manfred his power to describe the 
wilder aspects of Nature. 

Stanza LXX. Is an eternal April to the ground. A line more 
delicate in beauty than is usual with Byron. 

Stanza LXXI. Like an eternity: Point out the effect of the 
similes in this stanza. 

Cataract and' track are a false rhyme. 

Stanza LXXII. The similes in this stanza should be studied. 

Stanza LXXIII. Their mightier parents: Byron had only just 
published his Manfred, which was written partly to express his 
feelings in the presence of Alpine scenery. The snow of the 
Jungfrau is no longer untrodden. 

Lauioine: See note, Stanza XII. The correct plural is "Lauwinen." 

Chimari is the name of the town near the Acroceraunian moun- 
tains. Acroceraunian means in Greek, peaks struck by thunder 
or lightning. Shelley, too, loved this sonorous name. His Arethusa 
. arose 
From her couch of snows 
In the Acroceraunian mountains. 



CHXLDE HAROLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 347 

Stanza LXXIV. With a Trojan's eye must mean, from the plain 
of Troy : for the position of these other mountains, consult a 
classical atlas. 

Soracte's height: "This mountain (now known as San Oreste), 
to the north of Rome, though only 2,260 feet high, is a conspicuous 
object in the view from many points in the city, on account of its 
isolated position. Its broken contour, as it rises 'from out the 
plain' (we have in mind particularly the view from San Pietro 
di Montorio — the ancient Janiculum), at once recalls the poet's 
comparison to a breaking wave. Vergil refers to Soracte in the 
Aen. VI. 696 : 'Hi Soractis habent arces ;' and id. XI. 785 ; - Summe 
deum, sancti custos Soractis Apollo ;' and Horace, in Od. I. 9 : 
'Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte.' It is this last passage 
that Byron had in mind in saying that the height is 'not now in 
snow.' The temple of Apollo on the summit, to which Vergil 
alludes, is replaced by the modern church of San Silvestro." — 
Rolfe. 

Lyric Roman: Horace. See note above. 

Stanza LXXV II. Then farewell Horace ; whom I hated so : This 
passage has been a comfort to hundreds of people, disgusted with 
classic literature by the monotonous drill of old-fashioned classical 
training. Byron himself writes : 

"I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can 
comprehend the beauty ; that we learn by rote before we can get 
by heart ; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure 
and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, 
at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power 
of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as 
well as Latin and Greek, to relish or to reason upon. ... In 
some parts of the Continent young persons are taught from more 
common authors, and do not read the best classics till their 
maturity." 

Stanza LXXV III. Rome, my country: Byron now reaches 
the goal of his journey. He is more entirely his most interesting 
self, in the stanzas that follow, than he has been except in flashes 
up to this time. Can you point out why contact with the "lone 
mother of dead empires" should be peculiarly soothing as well as 
exalting to a man like Byron? 

Stanza LXXIX. The Niobe of nations: Consult a classical 
dictionary. 

The Scipios' tomb: Discovered in 1780 and soon rifled. 

Stanza LXXX. Up the steep: Tourists may still climb the 
Capitoline Hill and recall old days when the triumphal processions 
led Rome's captives up it. 

Stanza LXXXI, I. 2. What grammatical error do you discover 
in this line? 

Stanza LXXXII. Alas, the lofty city. Some general knowledge 
of Roman history, at least of the most dramatic moments, is neces- 



348 SHOBTER ENGLISH POEMS 

sary to appreciate the stanzas that follow. See the Student's His- 
tory of Rome, by H. G. Liddell (Murray), or any other good Roman 
history. 

Stanza LXXXIII. Sylla, in 87 B. C, set out for a war against 
Mithridates before he had profited by his victory over his enemy^ 
Marius. He was appointed Dictator in B. C. 81, but after two years 
resigned the dictatorship and retired into private life. 

Stanza LXXXV. Cromwell arbitrarily dissolved the Long Par- 
liament and was responsible for the execution of Charles I, a 
deed which Byron here seems to regard as a crime. 

Stanza LXXXV. His fate: "On the third of September, Crom- 
well gained the victory of Dunbar (1650), a year afterwards he 
obtained his 'crowning mercy' of Worcester (1651) ; and a few 
years after (1658), on the same day, which he had ever esteemed 
the most fortunate for him, he died." — Byron. 

Stanza LXXXVII. Dread statue: The statue of Pompey, still 
to be seen in the Spada Palace at Rome, at the base of which, if 
tradition is right, Caesar fell, assassinated by Brutus. See Shake- 
speare's Julius Cwsar, Act III, Scene II. Compare line 732, yet 
existent in: What offends the ear at this point? It is such 
lapses in melody, such misuse of accent, not infrequent in Byron, 
that force us to realize how much weaker the spirit of melody 
was in him than it is in the greatest poets. 

Great Nemesis: Explain the force of this phrase. 

Stanza LXXXVIII. Thunder-stricken: In the Capitoline mu- 
seum of Rome stands a bronze wolf, a highly archaic work of the 
fifth century B. C. "This is probably the wolf which stood in the 
Capitoline Temple and was injured in B. C. 65 by lightning, of 
which traces are still evident on the hind-legs." Baedeker's Italy. 
See Cicero, third Oration Against Catiline. 

Which the great founder suck'd: Compare The Prophecy of 
Capys, line 37. But the Nurslings of the Wolf of the Capitol were 
added only in the Renaissance. 

Stanza LXXXIX, I. 7. Awkward grammar. Parse supremacy. 

Stanza XC. Bastard Cwsar: Napoleon was, when Byron wrote, 
an exile at St. Helena. In the third Canto of Childe Harold, 
Stanzas XXXVI-XLI, Byron has a long character-study of him. 

Alcides with the distaff: See classical dictionary. 

Stanza XCI. And came — and saw — and conquered: A trans- 
lation of Csesar's own words, "Veni, vidi, vici." 

The eagles are the French troops, trained to "flee" toward the 
enemy, like hawks. 

Stanza XCII. The tears and olood of earth: When Byron wrote 
Europe was still convulsed with the near memory of the great 
and bloody Napoleonic wars which had followed the outrages of 
the French Revolution. See Introduction and selections from 
Canto III. 



CHILDE HAROLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 349 

Renew thy rainbow, God! An appeal peculiarly dignified and 
natural under the political circumstances. 
Stanza XCIII. Custom's falsest scale: 

Custom lies upon us with a weight 
Heavy as frost and deep almost as life. 
— Wordsworth : Ode on the Intimations of Immortality. 

Stanzas XCIII-XGVIII. It is well to summarize the view of 
human life and contemporary history given in these stanzas. 
Byron had lived through a great historic epoch, the real meaning 
of which was in his day hard to discern. The confusion and dis- 
couragement expressed in this passage are the natural reaction 
from the excitement of the Revolutionary hope, seemingly contra- 
dicted and mocked by the tyranny of Napoleon and all the cor- 
ruption of social life under the Empire. It is natural for a poet, 
musing among the ruins of Imperial Rome, to contemplate sadly 
the nothingness of Fame, the failure of human effort : but Byron 
had an especial excuse for his hopelessness, and he shows the 
indomitable courage of the idealist, when, after the gloom and 
depression of the earlier stanzas, he suddenly makes the splendid 
turn to faith and hope in the ninety-eighth. 

Stanza XGV. Earth's rulers, etc.: The Empire was followed by 
a revival of absolute government in Europe. See Introduction. 

Stanza XCVI. A Pallas: See classical dictionary. Byron was 
not alone in his day in turning from the apparently hopeless scene 
presented to a lover of freedom by European politics, to the brighter 
prospect of America. 

This stanza suggests the attitude, common at the time, of the 
followers of Rousseau, who believed that civilization was an evil 
and that the only remedy for it was a return to Nature. 

Stanza XCVII. But France got drunk with blood, etc.: A pain- 
ful but expressive figure : one aspect of a whole historic epoch 
summed up in a metaphor. 

Saturnalia: A Roman festival marked by the wildest license. 

The base pageant last upon the scene: "By the base pageant 
Byron refers to the Congress of Vienna (September, 1815) : The 
Holy Alliance (September 26) into which the Duke of Wellington 
would not enter, and the Second Treaty of Paris, November 20, 
1815."— #. H. Coleridge. 

Thrall is equivalent to thrandom. 

Stanza XCVIII. Yet, Freedom, yet, etc.: This ringing stanza 
is one of the most memorable strains in Byron. It deserves to 
rank with the sonnet prefixed to The Prisoner of Chillon. We see 
in it just why the young conspirators and lovers of liberty all over 
Europe looked to the poet as a leader. Each figure here has a 
meaning to be carefully studied. Note (line 881) that whatever 
personal grievance Byron may cherish against England, it is still 



350 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 






to her that he turns when at his best, as to the protector of 
freedom. 

Stanza XCIX. After the excitement in the last stanzas, Byron 
and his readers crave the relief of pensive meditation. Nothing 
could create this mood more swiftly than the Tomb of Cecilia 
Metella, on the Appian Way, which he now describes. As Byron 
suggests, we know nothing about this lady except that she was wife 
of the youngest Crassus, son of the Triumvir. The round tower 
which is her tomb was built during the reign of Augustus. 

Stanza CI. Egypt's graceful queen: Cleopatra. 

Stanza CIV. In this and the following stanza, Byron drifts 
back into the vein of personal sentiment. The passage is meant 
to be pathetic and quiet. Compare a more delicate rendering of a 
similar mood in Shelley's exquisite Stanzas Written in Dejection, 
near Naples. 

Stanza CVI. On the Palatine: The hill above the Forum, still 
covered with the great ruins of the Palace of the Caesars. 

Stanza CVII. Cypress and ivy, etc.: The ruins of Rome are not 
so romantic today as when Byron visited the city : for modern 
archaeologists have scraped them clear of the tangle of vines and 
mosses here described. On the other hand, we can meet his chal- 
lenge and pronounce in many cases not only tbat "these are walls," 
but just what walls they were. Compare with the description 
in this stanza, the following passage from a letter of Shelley's, 
picturing the Baths of Caracalla, in which he wrote part of his 
lyrical drama, Prometheus Unbound. 

'■"Never was any desolation more sublime and lovely. The per- 
pendicular wall of ruin is cloven into steep ravines filled up with 
flowering shrubs, whose thick twisted roots are knotted in the 
rifts of the stones. ... In one of the buttresses are the crumbling 
remains of an antique winding staircase. . . . Thisj^ou ascend and 
arrive on the summit of these piles. There grow on every side 
thick entangled wildernesses of myrtle, and the myrletus, and bay, 
and the flowering laurestinus, whose white blossoms are just 
developed, the white fig, and a thousand nameless plants sown by 
the wandering winds. . . . Come to Rome. It is a scene by which 
expression is overpowered, which words can not convey." 

Stanza CVIII. Do you find Byron's moralizings fresh, or is there 
to your mind a certain monotony about them? How much space 
do you think it would take to put into prose the ideas in this canto 
of Childe Harold? 

Stanza CIX. Thou pendulum: A frequently quoted line. 

In this span: Immediately around the Palatine, on which the 
poet is still meditating. 

Where are its golden roofs? The roofs of the enormous Golden 
House of Nero, extending from the Palatine to the Esquiline. 

Stanza CX. Nameless column: The column had ceased to be 
nameless in 1813, when it received the name of the Column of 



CHILDE HAROLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 351 

Phocas (A. D. 608). But modern archaeology ascribes it to an 
earlier time, that of Diocletian, A. D. 2S4. 

The Arch of Titus rises at the foot of the Palatine : the column 
under which Trajan was buried is at some distance. In 1587 the 
statue of Trajan on the top was replaced by that of St. Peter. 
There was an old tradition that the ashes of the Emperor were in 
an urn on the summit of the pillar. Trajan was one of the best 
of the Roman Emperors. 

Stanza CXII. The rock of Triumph marked the spot on the Cap- 
itoline Hill where the Triumphs ended. The steep Tarpeian (1002) 
was the precipice from which criminals were thrown. See an 
effective scene placed above it in Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, 
Vol. I, Ch. 18. 

Yon field below: Throughout these last stanzas Byron, though 
his mind roams abroad, is seated on the Palatine looking down 
into the Forum. 

Stanza CXIII. The field of freedom, etc.: This stanza suggests 
in outline the whole history of Imperial Rome. 

Stanza CXIV. Rienzi: The mediaeval patriot who, inspired by 
the history of ancient Roman freedom, led a popular movement 
against the nobles and was given the classic title of Tribune in 
1347. For his tragic story see Bulwer Lytton's novel, Rienzi, the 
Last of the Tribunes. 

Her new-born Numa thou: Numa, one of the seven kings of 
Rome, a legendary law-giver, beloved and instructed, according to 
the myth, by the nymph Egeria. 

Stanza CXV. Nympholepsy : An ecstasy that possesses one who 
sees a nymph in spring or fountain. Byron means that Egeria 
may have been the hallucination of some fondly despairing man. 
See Browning's poem, Numpholeptos. 

Stanza CXV I. The mosses of thy fountain: About a mile and 
a quarter from the city, a footpath leads off from the Appian Way 
to a small wood, commanding a view of Rome, the Campagna, and 
the Alban Hills, and known as the Bosco Sacro, because Numa 
is said here to have met Egeria. Near at hand is the so-called 
"Grotto of Egeria." "The grotto is a Nyinphaeum (a little sanctu- 
ary, sacred to a nymph), originally covered with marble, the shrine 
of the brook Almo, . . . and was erected at a somewhat late 
period." — Baedeker. 

Stanza CXV II. Bills: Does this word give you a shock? Why? 

Stanzas CXX-CXXVII. These stanzas again form a long inter- 
lude expressing personal emotions very slightly connected with 
the sights of Rome. Roman history does not afford many instances 
of lovers or of youthful sentiment : Byron had to hark back to 
the legend of Egeria to find an occasion for his very modern mus- 
ings. The passage shows clear evidence of the influence of Shelley, 
whose Epipsychidion renders in more subtle and enchanting verse, 
a similar attitude and emotion. 



352 SHOETEK ENGLISH POEMS 

Stanza GXXT. The naked eye is the subject of the verbs in the 
preceding line. 

The mind hath made thee: Byron was no student of Plato, as 
Shelley was, yet at times throughout this passage his experience 
of disappointment leads him to use pseudo-platonic phrases. But 
Plato did not think that the image of beauty was a delusion cre- 
ated by the mind, but an elusive hint of a beauty really existent, 
invisible, and immortal. 

Stanza CXXIV. We wither from our youth: Byron now extends 
his arraignment of life to cover a wider range than disappointed 
affection. There is a genuine note to the lines. Compare the 
Chorus of Furies in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Act I, and the 
choruses in Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon, for a similar pes- 
simism. 

Unslaked the thirst: Do you agree with Byron that the absence 
of satisfaction in earthly life is an evil? Or do you rather hold 
with Browning in Rabbi Ben Ezra, 

What I aspired to be, 
And was not, comforts me? 

Love, fame, ambition, avarice: Might not faith, service, the thirst 
for sacrifice be also counted as impelling motives? 

Stanza CXXVI. Our life is a false nature: This strong stanza 
is the climax of Byron's pessimism. 

Upas: Look up the "Upas Tree," and explain the figure fully. 

Stanza CXXVII. Yet let us ponder boldly: Byron suggests that 
in courageous thought is the only escape from life's miseries. 

Cabin 'd, cribb'd, confined: Macbeth III, IV, 24. 

Couch: Couching is an operation to remove a cataract by the 
use of a needle. 

Stanza C XXVIII. Coliseum: This largest theatre in the world, 
originally called the Flavian Amphitheatre, was completed by 
Titus in A. D. 80. Gladiatorial combats and wild-beast fights were 
the forms of amusement here offered to the Roman public, until 405 
A. D., when the gladiatorial fights were forbidden. The first three 
stories were built upon great arches divided by columns. See 
Manfred, Act III, Scene IV, for another description of the Coliseum 
by night. 

Since Byron's time probably thousands of tourists have visited 
the Coliseum by moonlight. 

Stanza CXXX. Stanzas CXXX-CXXXVIII. Byron does not con- 
template the great monuments of history very long without turning 
from them to his own unhappy condition. Is the poetry better or 
worse for this habit of his? 

The following stanzas more than any others in the poem deserve 
Matthew Arnold's descriptive phrase already quoted. Byron feels 
himself deeply wronged by the English public and by those nearest 



CHILDE HAROLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 353 

to him, and solemnly calls on Time to revenge and reinstate him. 
"This wreck," the ruined Coliseum, is a dramatic background for 
his emotions. 

Stanza GXXXII. Orestes: See a classical dictionary. 

Had it but been from hands less near: In the next stanza Byron 
seems to imply that he might have thought his fate just had his 
punishment not been inflicted by those near to him. 

Stanza C XXXIII. For the sake: Probably the name which he 
checks himself from speaking is that of his sister Augusta or his 
little daughter Ada. 

Stanza CXXXV. That curse shall be Forgiveness: There is a 
striking parallel to this fine turn in the first act of Shelley's 
Prometheus Unbound. The suffering Titan, representative of 
humanity, has learned through his pain to translate hate into pity, 
and despite the reluctance of the spiritual forces that represent the 
natural order, recalls the curse he has once pronounced on Jupiter, 
his tyrant. The recalling of this curse and the perfecting of for- 
giveness in the Titan's soul is the signal for the dramatic action to 
open. Shelley may for once have been influenced by Byron, as he 
wrote in 1818, a year after this canto was published. 

Not altogether of such clay: Perhaps there is not in English 
poetry a more arrogant passage than this. 

Stanza CXXXV I. The Janus glance: Janus, from whom our 
mid-winter month is named, was the Roman god who looked in two 
directions. 

Stanza CXXXV III. The seal is set: The curse is ended. If we 
are inclined to find the foregoing passage melodramatic, we must 
remember that Byron lived at the height of the Romantic move- 
ment. The essence of the Romantic temper is said by M. 
Brunetiere, the French critic, to be "the display of the Ego." 

Thou dread power: "The sentiment of antiquity," according to 
one commentator. 

Stanza CXXXIX. Listed: The "Lists" were in the middle ages 
the grounds marked off for combat in a tournament. 

Stanza CXL\ The Gladiator: This famous statue in the Capi- 
toline Museum is now known to represent, not a Gladiator dying in 
the Coliseum, but a Gaul, who may be dying on any battle-field. 
He is recognized as a Gaul by his twisted collar, short hair, and 
moustache. 

This is probably the best description of a work of art in Childe 
Harold. Notice that it interprets, not the emotions aroused in 
Byron by the statue, as in the case of his description of the Venus 
de Medici, but the emotions which the Gaul himself feels. 

Stanza CXLI. Arise! ye Goths: A fine dramatic turn, suggest- 
ing the final conquest of Rome by the Goths and Vandals. 

Stanza CXLII. Millions' blame or praise, etc.: "When one glad- 
iator wounded another, he shouted, 'He has it,' 'Hoc habet,' or 
'Habet.' The wounded combatant dropped his weapon, and, ad- 



354 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

vancing to the edge of the arena, supplicated the spectators. If he 
had fought well, the people saved him, if otherwise, or as they hap- 
pened to be inclined, they turned down their thumbs and he was 
slain." — Hobhouse. 

Stanza (fXLIII. From its mass: In the Middle Ages the 
Coliseum was used as a stone quarry. 

Stanza CXLIV. The garland forest: See Note, line 955. 

Like laurels, etc.: "Suetonius informs us that Julius Caesar was 
particularly gratified by that decree of the senate which enabled 
him to wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was anxious, 
not to show that he was the conqueror of the world, but to hide 
that he was bald." — Byron. 

Stanza CXLV. While stands the Coliseum, etc.: "This is quoted 
in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as a proof that the 
Coliseum was entire when seen by the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims at the 
end of the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century." — Byron. It 
is ascribed to the Venerable Bede, and the original reads : "Quamdiu 
stabit Coliseus, stabit et Roma ; quando cadet Coliseus, cadet Roma ; 
quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus." 

Stanza CXLVI. Simple, erect, etc.: Byron now leaves the 
Coliseum and turns abruptly to talking about another Roman monu- 
ment, the Pantheon. The name of this building means "very 
sacred," not as Byron probably thought a temple of "all the gods." 
It was probably dedicated to the gods of the seven planets. It is 
a round building, lighted only by an orifice in the dome. In 609 
it was consecrated as a Christian Church. It is the only ancient 
building in Rome still in perfect preservation. 

Stanza CXLV III. There is a dungeon: Another abrupt turn. In 
the earlier part of the poem, the transitions are naturally effected 
by means of some association of ideas. But from now on Byron's 
method is more disconnected and the poem reads like a collection 
of stanzas dealing with various subjects, taken almost at random 
from his note-book. 

His own note reads : "This and the three next stanzas allude 
to the story of a Roman daughter, which is recalled to the traveler 
t>y the site or pretended site of that adventure now shown at the 
church of San Nicola in Carcere." The imprisoned father was 
sentenced to die by starvation, but the daughter nourished him by 
milk from her breast. 

Stanza CXLIX. Cain was Eve's: Byron enjoys giving a cynical 
twist to the end of a stanza. Compare line 1305. Cynicism and 
sentimentality are never far apart. 

Stanza CLII. The Mole: Now known as the Castle of St. Angelo. 
Erected by Hadrian in 130, for his own tomb. See the interesting 
summary of the history of the building in Baedeker. 

Stanzas CLIII-CLX. From ancient Rome we turn to the Rome 
of the Renaissance. Early Christian Rome had no interest for 
Byron. He now dedicates seven stanzas to the Basilica of St. 



CHILDE HAROLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 355 

Peter's, the great Church rebuilt by Bramante and Michelangelo. 
It is difficult to avoid feeling that in the case of buildings and 
works of art, Byron admired with docility what the taste of his 
age bade him admire. St. Peter's is a marvelous architectural 
monument, but to call it among all temples "worthiest of God, the 
Holy and the True," is to claim too much. 

Stanza CLIII. The Ephesian's miracle: The Temple of Diana of 
the Ephesians, alluded to in the Acts of the Apostles. 

Sophia's bright roofs: The Mosque of Santa Sophia at Con- 
stantinople. 

Stanza CLV. Overwhelms thee not: One appreciates the size of 
St. Peter's, not at once, but only after repeated visits. Byron 
expresses this fact effectively in the next stanzas. 

Stanza CLVI. Increasing with the advance: Can you parse "in- 
creasing"? 

Gigantic elegance: A good phrase for St. Peter's. Would it be 
a good phrase for an Alp? 

Michael Angelo said of this dome that his plan would raise the 
Pantheon in air. 

Stanza CLX. Laocoon's torture: See classical dictionary. This 
is the statue which affords the text to Lessing's famous treatise 
on aesthetics, The Laocoon. 

Stanza CLXI. The Lord of the unerring bote: The statue known 
as the Apollo Belvedere. 

Stanza CLXIV. The Pilgrim of my song: Childe Harold, the 
nominal hero of the first two cantos, who has been lost to sight 
since the 55th stanza of Canto III. We have not especially missed 
him, but as Byron draws to the end of his poem, he realizes that he 
must wind matters up, and these lines in which he dismisses his 
quondam hero into that general past of ruin on which he has 
throughout been dwelling, are clever and effective. 

Stanza CLXVI. Fardels: Burdens; a Shakespearean word. 

Stanza CLXVII. Hark! forth from the abyss, etc.: "From the 
thought of death the poet passes to the death of the Princess 
Charlotte, which happened when he was at Venice. No other event 
during the present century has caused so great a shock to public 
feeling in England ; and Byron himself, as we learn from his let- 
ters, was deeply moved by it. She was the only daughter of George 
IV, who at the time was Prince Regent, and consequently she was 
Heiress Presumptive to the British crown. She was virtuous, 
accomplished, large-hearted, and sympathetic, and the hopes of the 
nation were fixed upon her as one who might inaugurate an era 
of prosperity. On May 10, 1S16, she married Prince Leopold of 
Saxe-Coburg (afterward king of the Belgians), and on Nov. 0, 
1817, she died in childbirth." — Tozer. 

Byron's deep and real feeling for his country, as well as his 
unfailing interest in political events, is evident in this passage. 

Stanza CLXXI. Tumbles mightiest sovereigns: "Mary died on 



356 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

the scaffold ; Elizabeth of a broken heart ; Charles V, a hermit ; 
Louis XIV, a bankrupt in means and glory; Cromwell, of anxiety; 
and, 'the greatest is behind,' Napoleon lives a prisoner. To these 
sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added of names 
equally illustrious and unhappy." — Byron. 

Stanza CLXXIII. Lo, Nemi: This time, the abruptness of the 
transition is painfully startling. The exquisite little Lake Nemi 
fills an extinct crater among the Alban Hills. This is the region 
to which belongs the strange and haunting old story alluded to in 
Macaulay's Battle of the Lake Regillus, line 171. 

Stanza CLXXIV. The Lotion coast: On this coast began the 
war celebrated by Virgil in The Aeneid. 

Beneath thy right: The allusion is to Cicero's villa at Tusculum. 

The Sabine farm belonged to Horace. Byron chafed against 
classical studies, but they enabled him to enjoy the rich associa- 
tions of a landscape like this. 

Stanza CLXXV. Calpe's rock: Gibraltar. "Last may be the last 
time that Byron and Childe Harold saw the Mediterranean together. 
Byron had seen it in his return journey to England in 1811. Or 
by 'last' he may mean the last time that it burst upon his view. 
He had not seen the Mediterranean on his way from Geneva to 
Venice or on his way from Venice to Rome, but now from the 
Alban Mount the ocean was in full view." — E. H. Coleridge. 

Stanza CLXXV I. Symplegades: Two small islands near the en- 
trance of the Euxine or Black Sea. 

Gladden' d by the sun: Here is a much more wholesome note than 
many that the poet has struck. 

Stanza CLXXV II. One fair Spirit: Some commentators question 
whether Byron has in mind a spirit or a mortal. But the sequel 
eurely makes it clear that he is thinking of a spirit. 

Stanzas CLXXV III-CLXXXV : In spite of the diversity of sub- 
jects treated, this canto of the poem has had one ever-recurrent 
theme : the vanity of human life, illustrated by the personal 
experience of the poet, and by the transitoriness of human glory. 
It is with a fitting climax that he turns at the end to the abiding 
might and freedom of Nature. Coleridge, too, seeking in vain for 
Freedom in the range of human experience, finds it in Nature 
alone. 

Ye ocean-waves, which wheresoe'er ye rove, 
Yield homage only to eternal laws. 

— Ode to France. 

Do you find in these stanzas the intimate sense of communion 
with Nature conveyed by the poetry of Wordsworth? Or does 
Byron impress you as usi:\g Nature after all chiefly for purposes 
of contrast? 

Stanza CLXXX. There let him lay: This last unfortunate 
blunder has always made sport for the critics. Luckily the lines 
that it spoils are not among the best. 



CHILDE HAEOLD: CANTO IV: NOTES 357 

Stanza CLXXXI. The Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar: 
The Spanish Armada and a large portion of the fleet captured by 
the British at Trafalgar were destroyed by storms. Cf. Macaulay's 
poem, p. 471. 

Stanza CLXXXII. Thy waters tcash'd them power: These mari- 
time states all owed their supremacy to the facilities afforded them 
for commerce by their sea-coasts. 

Stanza CLXXXV. My midnight lamp: It is rather a pity to be 
reminded that the poem is not composed high among the Alban 
Hills, gazing on the distant sea, but by the midnight lamp in the 
poet's own room. 



THOMAS BABINGTON, 
LOED MACAULAY 



359 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 

1800-1859. 
I. 

Macaulay's birth year is the birth year of a century. 
"It was on the twenty-fifth of October, 1800/' says his 
nephew and biographer, Trevelyan, "that Lord Macaulay 
opened his eyes on a world that he was destined so 
thoroughly to learn and so intensely to enjoy." 

Whether Macaulay really did learn the world thor- 
oughly may be questioned. That is a great claim. He 
had a remarkable knowledge of books, of political life, 
and of contemporary society; but there were many 
reaches of knowledge and experience that he never en- 
tered. Of his enjoyment of the world, however, there 
can be no doubt; it is a pleasure to dwell on a life so 
laborious and happy, so full of zest, energy, and satisfy- 
ing achievement. 

Macaulay had a good tradition behind him. His 
father, Zachary Macaulay, was actively concerned in 
abolishing the slave trade, and the son's childhood 
was passed in constant contact with the group of high- 
minded men concerned with this great issue. He was a 
sweet-tempered, affectionate boy, normal in everything 
except in his prodigious cleverness; for like his contem- 
porary, John Stuart Mill, he was an infant phenom- 
enon. Many entertaining stories of his precocity may be 
read in the admirable biography by his nephew already 
alluded to. "Thank you, Madam, the agony is abated," 
361 



362 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

replied the little fellow of four to an apologetic hostess 
when hot coffee had been spilled on his wee legs. From 
the age of three he read incessantly, and what is more 
to the point, remembered mnch. He picked up Scott's 
Lay of the Last Minstrel one day when he had accom- 
panied his mother on a call, read contentedly while she 
chatted, and on their return perched on the edge of her 
bed and repeated nearly the whole poem to her. In 
later years he used to say that if all copies of Paradise 
Lost and The Pilgrims Progress were to be destroyed, 
he could restore them from memory. Macaulay was no 
prig, however, but a perfectly natural boy. His home- 
sick letters when away at school were just what one 
would like a schoolboy to write, though few boys or 
men have command of such pellucid English. His 
parents never allowed a hint that he was cleverer than 
other children to reach him. In one way the result 
was unfortunate : Macaulay always overestimated the 
attainments of other people. His "Every schoolboy 
knows" became almost a proverbial expression, and one 
very discouraging to schoolboys. 

After a distinguished career at his university, Cam- 
bridge, Macaulay gained a fellowship, in 1824. He was 
called to the bar but never practiced. Politics and lit- 
erature were to be the pursuits of his life. He was 
only twenty-five years old when his brilliant essay on 
Milton, which appeared in The Edinburgh Review, 
achieved a wide success. A few years later he entered 
Parliament. Zachary Macaulay, in spite of his philan- 
thropic ardor, had been a Tory. But his son was, when 
a very young man, converted to the principles of the 
Liberals, or, as they were then called, the Whigs, 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 363 

This party was now in the ascendant, and stood for 
gradual extension of political democracy. It neither 
clung to the past like the Tories nor dreamed of a far 
future like the Kadicals, but was satisfied with a 
policy of moderate reform. Macaulay, with his party, 
believed ardently in constitutional freedom. He thought 
that carefully protected and cautiously extended polit- 
ical rights plus free competition, with no State inter- 
ference in industry, would suffice to make England a 
perfectly prosperous country. It was at a propitious 
moment for him that he entered Parliament — just in 
time to play an effective part in the great fight that led 
to the indorsement of these principles in the Keform 
Bill of 1832. This bill enlarged the franchise, ended 
much political corruption, and definitely placed the 
balance of power in the hands of that middle and com- 
mercial class which was to control England during the 
nineteenth century as effectively as the aristocracy of 
birth had controlled it during the middle ages, or as 
the laboring classes want to control it in the future. 
It was to this middle class that Macaulay himself be- 
longed: he was to fight its battles, become its favorite 
author, and express its attitude better than any other 
writer of the Victorian age. 

Soon after the passage of the Eeform Bill, Macaulay 
received a reward for his services to his party by an 
appointment to the Indian Civil Service. After a few 
years in Imiia, during which he wrote some of his best 
known essays, he came home, in 1838. He held high 
offices : at one time he was Secretary of War, at another 
Postmaster-General. But his political career is a little 
disappointing after his early promise. In truth, liter- 



364 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

ature rather than politics held his deepest love. In 
1842 he published the Lays of. Ancient Rome, in 1843 a 
collection of his Essays. His literary fame was now 
high; hut it mounted yet more when he took advantage 
of an interval during which he held no seat in Parlia- 
ment, to complete and publish, in 1848, the first two 
volumes of his masterpiece, The History of England 
from the Accession of James II. If the story be true 
that Macaulay wanted to write a history which would 
appear on as many drawing-room tables as a popular 
novel, he realized his ambition. He published two more 
volumes in 1855, was raised to the House of Lords in 
1857, and died of heart disease in 1859, without having 
finished his history. The work was planned on so large 
a scale that human powers could hardly have sufficed to 
complete it. 

Macaulay never married. He was a kind, honorable, 
vigorous man, of great intellectual vitality. He was some- 
what self-confident, and people complained that he 
never let anyone else share in the talking: but there 
can seldom have been any one else in a room so well 
worth hearing. Many of his greatest contemporaries, 
— Carlyle, Newman, Ruskin, Arnold, — were stirred by 
deep dissatisfaction, spiritual and social. But to him 
the Liberal creed of his youth always seemed to solve all 
problems, and he rejoiced with unshaken cheer in the 
commercial prosperity, the spread of popular education, 
and the religious freedom, of his beloved country. 

II. 

Macaulay is known as a political writer, an essayist, 
an historian, and a writer of verse. His speeches are 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LOED MACAULAY 365 

today undeservedly neglected : they are admirable in 
their way and there is no better record of the attitude of 
a high-minded Liberal during the reign of Victoria. But 
his popularity and his solid fame alike rest upon the 
other three departments of his work. 

Macaulay's essays constituted a sort of university 
extension course in general knowledge for his contem- 
poraries, and they retain a good deal of the same value 
today. They have the great advantage of being inter- 
esting: "The most restless of juvenile minds," says 
Mr. Saintsbury, "if induced to enter one of Macaulay's 
essays, is almost certain to reappear at the other end 
of it, gratified and, to an appreciable extent, cultivated/' 

The chief reason that Macaulay is so interesting is 
that he is interested himself. He writes on a large va- 
riety of themes, and on each he has something fresh, 
stimulating, and convincing to say. These essays are 
usually nominal reviews of books, but he is very little 
occupied with the book under discussion. He uses it 
only as a point of departure for his own ideas, and in 
many a case the book is remembered in our day solely as 
having given occasion to the essay. In his themes, 
English literature takes the lead, with subjects derived 
from English history a good second. A smaller num- 
ber of notable essays deal with European letters or 
history. But the ostensible subject often allows a widely 
discursive treatment which would entitle Macaulay to 
hold Carlyle's imaginary chair, as Professor of Things 
in General. 

It is the fashion nowadays to warn people that Ma- 
caulay's essays are shallow. This is true in a sense. 
Place him beside a critic like Matthew Arnold, and the 



366 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

lack of sensitiveness and impartiality is evident at once. 
Nothing ever was so simple as everything appeared to 
him : he labored, as Saintsbury says, from "a constitu- 
tional incapacity for not making up his mind." Now, 
life is a very complex affair, and an overconfident person 
is snre to make blunders. Macaulay is prejudiced : 
Whig convictions determine his attitude toward every- 
thing in history and letters, and his dogmatic tone ap- 
pears to us no longer a strength but a weakness. -Yet, 
when all is said, these essays are capital reading, and 
to any one a little on his guard they afford an invalu- 
able introduction to their subjects. Only they should 
never be considered to have said the last word. 

Much in what we have been saying can be applied 
to the famous History. Macaulay's preferences had 
free play in this chronicle of the final overthrow in 
England of the ideal of absolute monarchy. He painted 
his Stuarts and all belonging to them too black, his 
William of Orange and the House i of Hanover too 
white. After his day, a school of historians arose who 
tried to write without sympathies, believing that truth 
can only be found apart from all personal prepossession. 
The controversy between these two schools is not yet 
settled, but it is interesting to notice that the pendu- 
lum is just now swinging back a little toward the 
method of Macaulay. People are beginning to say 
that no historian can escape the "personal equation"; 
that he may as well accept this fact and make the best 
of it, giving us his own honest interpretation of history 
in a harmonized story, and leave correction to come from 
others who will tell the story in their turn from their 
own point of view. Whichever school may prevail, it is 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 367 

certain that Macaulay's History is better reading 
than that of many a more dispassionate writer. Some 
portions, for example, the well-known Chapter III, 
which gives a picture of England in the seventeenth 
century, contrasting it with the England of Ma- 
caulay's own day, are extremely brilliant. 

Macaulay's prose style reflects the qualities of his 
mind. It has been accused of artificiality on account 
of its balance and symmetry ; but the sharp antitheses, 
the habitual periodic structure, the effective if rather 
obvious use of climax, form a natural manner for a 
man like Macaulay, who was always balancing thought 
against thought after the fashion of a parliamentary 
debater, who saw no half-shades, and was endowed 
with a great gift of systematizing material. Ma- 
caulay's style is excellent in exposition and in rapid 
narrative: moreover, it can rise to an effective elo- 
quence. He can praise generously, he can condemn 
crushingly. He builds up his style clause by clause, 
using language rather as a builder uses his bricks 
than as a musician uses his tones. But it is good 
building. 

. HI. 

It remains to speak of Macaulay's verse. That is 
the one aspect of his work which this little book 
presents, and the Lays of Ancient Borne, with one 
or two other ballads, such as Ivry and The Bat- 
tle of Naseby, constitute his most important poetic 
writing. From a man of such qualities as those 
on which we have just dwelt it would be idle to 
look for poetry of the highest order. Macaulay him- 
self was very modest about his poems and alluded to 



368 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

them as trifling things. These trifles, however, sold 
out edition after edition, and they richly deserve the 
popularity which they have always retained. Macaulay 
does not quicken our sense of the beauty or the mystery 
in the world. Nor is there any magic in these spirited 
metres such as haunts the ear in the cadences of Coleridge 
and Shelley. Indeed, the rhythm, though at its best it 
stirs the most sluggish blood, has at its worst something 
of that monotony that marks the cadences of Macaulay 7 s 
prose. But in spite of these limitations, he is an apa- 
thetic reader who is not moved by the Lays, for they 
treat heroic material with contagious enthusiasm: they 
are the best imaginative rendering that English liter- 
ature possesses of the romantic legendary history of 
ancient Eome. 

These poems spring from the intimate knowledge of 
classic antiquity which Macaulay shared with all edu- 
cated Englishmen of his day. The insistent drill in 
the classics which was then the distinctive feature of 
education is rapidly becoming, even in England, a thing 
of the past. Perhaps this is not to be regretted. But 
as one reads the Lays one can not, help feeling that the 
training was worth something. It quickened imagi- 
native enthusiasm for the great past of civilization, a 
thing which is really quite as important for us to know 
about as is the past of nature : it fixed the mind on high 
and splendid examples. Even if we see the old edu- 
cation pass without a pang, we may profit by the fruits 
of it as seen in the intellectual achievement of Eng- 
land through many generations. Among these fruits, 
Macaulay's Lays hold an honorable place. 

Kightly to read and enjoy these poems one should be 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 369 

familiar with, the outlines of Eoman history : one should 
at least have read Livy. The notes can give chopped 
facts, but they can not give the swing of the history 
nor the atmosphere of old Eoman days as Macaulay 
conceived it. His own introductions help a great deal, 
but even these presuppose more knowledge of Eoman 
civilization than the average boy possesses. We can not 
here write the History of Eome; but let us hint briefly 
where we must place ourselves to enjoy the Lays with 
intelligence. . 

The Lays commemorate certain great and picturesque 
moments in Eoman legendary history. But they do 
more than this, for each is supposed to be sung or 
said by a minstrel of later days. Thus Macaulay, as 
has not often enough been pointed out, anticipates 
Browning in his use of the dramatic lyric. He conceives 
these old Eoman minstrels, each stirred by a thrilling 
crisis to celebrate some glorious legend of his race : it 
will be found on close study that each Lay is carefully 
written in character, and the poems thus throw a double 
light on the story of Eome as Macaulay conceived it. 
The circumstances under which each Lay was supposed 
to be sung, and the character and point of view of the 
imaginary minstrel, he has explained to us in his own 
introductions, considerable extracts from which follow 
this section. We have here therefore only to speak of the 
legendary stories. 

If, then, we want to think ourselves back into the 
old Eoman traditions, the first Lay to read is The 
Prophecy of Capys. We are in the }^ear of the founding 
of the city, the famous traditional date, 753 b. c. 
Through the rich country of the Alban hills, lying to the 



370 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

south of Borne, that still gleams across the Campagna 
from the higher points of the city, march "two goodly 
youths and tall," bearing in triumph on the tip of sword 
and spear two shaggy frowning heads. These are the 
She-Wolfs Litter, Eomulus and Eemus, the twins, who 
have slain the wicked king who usurped their rights, and 
his false priest, and return to their ancestral halls amid 
the plaudits of the simple country folk. Here in the 
hall gate sits Capys, the old seer. He trembles as he 
discerns the approach of Romulus, and in ringing meas- 
ures, fire flashing from his blind eyes, pours forth a 
splendid prophecy of the founding of the city, and the 
future power of Eome. The whole spirit of the Ecman 
dominion, as Macaulay conceived it, is in the stately 
stanzas from the fifteenth to the twenty-first. The ad- 
vancing conquests of the city are then outlined: victory 
over the Etruscans and the Gauls is commemorated, and 
finally the poem sweeps on into a vision of the event sup- 
posed to be comtemporary with the writing of it, the first 
victory of Eome over Greece, in the year 479 a. u. c. 
But the image that lingers in the reader's mind is that 
of the bright, fierce foster-sons of the Wolf, true chil- 
dren of Mars, pausing in their triumphant advance to 
listen, to the uplifted strains of the old bard. 

The next poems in the historical order are the twin 
lays, Horatius and The Battle of the Lake Regillus. Both 
.are inspired by the same phase of legendary history: 
the struggle of Eome against the wicked kings of the 
House of Tarquin. According to the legend, Eome was 
iirst governed by a monarchy, Eomulus being the first 
Jdng. The last three kings belonged to an Etruscan 
dynasty. Their rule became increasingly hated, and 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 3 71 

in 510 the infamous treatment of a noble Eoman 
matron, Lucretia, by Sextus, the son of the king 
Tarquinius Superbus, resulted in a popular rising that 
expelled the kings and ended the monarchy. In 509 
the Eoman republic, under two consuls, was established. 
Tarquin first invoked the aid of Lars Porsena, the king 
of Etruria, which lay to the north of Eome. Later, in 
596, he sought the protection of the league of thirty 
Latin cities, to the south of Eome. Horatius presents 
an episode in the first struggle : The Battle of the Lake 
Regillus describes the conflict which ended the second. 
There is no need of recounting "how well Horatio kept 
the bridge," nor of pointing out how vividly the fighting 
is handled in the less dramatic but carefully wrought 
ballad of The Battle of the Lake Regillus. But it is 
worth while to suggest that the modern reader may read 
about Macaulay's haughty Etruscans with added enjoy- 
ment if he realizes the fascination of that mysterious 
race. Their memories pursue and baffle the traveler in 
Tuscany and Umbria today. Many of the little towns 
whose names run so trippingly from the tongue as one 
declaims Macaulay's verses are still standing on their 
hills : the visitor will find in their walls and in their an- 
cient buildings, huge blocks that seem to have been carved 
by giants — all Etruscan work. He may, if he likes, pene- 
trate the gloom of old tombs underground, and gaze on 
the lifelike recumbent effigies of Etruscan men and 
women, antedating the earliest legendary history of 
Eome, who look solemnly upon him as the guide flashes 
the candle in their faces. A touch of awe will surely 
overcome him, and if he recalls Macaulay's lines he will 
realize with a new glow the dramatic nature of the con- 



372 SHOKTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

flict commemorated between the free, rude soldier of 
ancient Eome and the tyrants sprung from that more 
ancient and dominant race, whose civilization, all but 
miraculously advanced, was yet doomed to perish before 
the onward march of the Legions. To the glimpses of 
the Etruscans, the Romans, and the Latins afforded' by 
the Lays, add the suggestions of beautiful Greek myth 
contained in the lay on the Battle of the Lake Regillus, 
and the great contending races in the Italian peninsula 
rise up before our eyes. 

One more episode from the early traditions of the 
city Macau! ay gave us: the touching ballad of Virginia, 
the only thing he ever wrote, as has been justly observed, 
that can make the tears come to the eyes. But here also 
the historic interest is as strong as the merely human. 
Since the battle of Lake Regillus a long period has 
elapsed. The monarchy is past and gone: but in the 
republic the struggle for effective liberty now centers in 
the conflict of the patricians with the plebeians. The 
ballad, written supposedly at one crisis in that long 
conflict, describes the tragic occasion of an early victory 
of the plebeians, and the establishment of those Tribunes 
who were the champions of popular rights. It shows us 
patrician insolence and tyranny, popular uprising, 
liberties sealed in innocent blood. 

Thus do the Lays give us glimpses of the founding of 
the city and of the most significant moments in the 
legends of its early history. Add to these stories of the 
most stirring moments in the legendary past the constant 
suggestion of some real historic crisis through the cir- 
cumstances of the narration, and the value of the Lays 
to any one who would quicken his enthusiasm and his 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LOED MACAULAY 373 

knowledge concerning the mighty city, for centuries 
the mistress of the world, may clearly be seen. 

Much that has been said concerning the Lays 
applies equally well to the other poems given in this 
volume. They too stir the blood, less by the finer 
thrill of imagination than by communicating heroic 
emotion with ringing eloquence. They bear witness 
to certain of Macaulay's leading enthusiasms: Ivry 
to his devotion to Protestantism; The Armada to his 
devotion to England, his country ; and Naseby to both 
these, and in addition to his ardent love for political 
and religious freedom. 



SELECTIONS FROM MACAULAY'S INTRODUC- 
TIONS. 

LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 

That what is called the history of the Kings and 
early Consuls of Rome is to a great extent fabulous, 
few scholars have, since the time of Beaufort, ven- 
tured to deny. It is certain that, more than three hun- 
dred and sixty years after the date ordinarily assigned 
for the foundation of the city, the public records were, 
with scarcely an exception, destroyed by the Gauls. 
It is certain that the oldest annals of the Common- 
wealth were compiled more than a century and a half 
after this destruction of the records. It is certain, 
therefore, that the great Latin writers of later period 
did not possess those materials without which a trust- 



374 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

worthy account of the infancy of the republic could 
not possibly be framed. They own, indeed, that the 
chronicles to which they had access were filled with 
battles that were never fought, and Consuls that never 
were inaugurated ; and we have abundant proof that, 
in those chronicles, events of the greatest importance, 
such as the issue of the war with Porsena, and the 
issue of the war with Brennus, were grossly misrepre- 
sented. Under these circumstances, a wise man will 
look with great suspicion on the legend which has 
come down to us. He will distrust almost all the 
details, not only because they seldom rest on any solid 
evidence, but also because he will constantly detect in 
them, even when they are within the limits of physical 
possibility, that peculiar character, more easily under- 
stood than defined, which distinguishes the creations 
of the imagination from the realities of the world in 
which we live. 

The early history of Rome is, indeed, far more poet- 
ical than anything else in Latin literature. The loves 
of the Vestal and the God of War, the cradle laid 
among the reeds of Tiber, the fig-tree, the she-wolf, 
the shepherd's cabin, the recognition, the fratricide, 
the rape of the Sabines, the death of Tarpeia, the fall 
of Hostus Hostilius, the struggle of Mettus Curtius 
through the marsh, the women rushing with torn rai- 
ment and dishevelled hair between their fathers and 
their husbands, the nightly meetings of Numa and the 
Nymph by the well in the sacred grove, the fight of 
the three Romans and the three Albans, the purchase 
of the Sibylline books, the crime of Tullia, the simu- 
lated madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LOED MACAULAY 375 

Delphian oracle to the Tarquins, the wrongs of Lucre- 
tia, the heroic actions of Horatius Codes, of Scsevola r 
and of Cloelia, the Battle of Regillus won by the aid 
of Castor and Pollux, the defense of Cremera, the 
touching story of Coriolanus, the still more touching 
story of Virginia, the wild legend about the draining 
of the Alban lake, the combat between Valerius Corvus 
and the gigantic Gaul, are among the many instances 
which will at once suggest themselves to every reader. 

The Latin literature which has come down to us is 
of later date than the commencement of the Second 
Punic War, and consists almost exclusively of works 
fashioned on Greek models. 

But there was an earlier Latin literature, a litera- 
ture truly Latin, which has wholly perished, — which 
had, indeed, almost perished long before those whom 
we are in the habit of regarding as the greatest Latin 
writers were born. That literature abounded with 
metrical romances, such as are found in every country 
where there is much curiosity and intelligence, but 
little reading and writing. All human beings, not 
utterly savage, long for some information about past 
times, and are delighted by narratives which present 
pictures to the eye of the mind. But it is only in very 
enlightened communities that books are readily acces- 
sible. Metrical composition, therefore, which, in a 
highly civilized nation, is a mere luxury, is, in nations 
imperfectly civilized, almost a necessary of life, and is 
valued less on account of the pleasure which it gives 
to the ear, than on account of the help which it gives 
to the memory. A man who can invent or embellish 
an interesting story, and put it into a form which 



376 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

others may easily retain in their recollection, will 
always be highly esteemed by a people eager for 
amusement and information, but destitute of libraries. 
Such is the origin of ballad-poetry, a species of com- 
position which scarcely ever fails to spring up and 
nourish in every society, at a certain point in the 
progress toward refinement. 

The proposition that Eome had ballad-poetry is not 
merely in itself highly probable, but is fully proved by 
direct evidence of the greatest weight. 

This proposition being established, it becomes easy 
to understand why the early history of the city is 
unlike almost everything else in Latin literature, — 
native where almost everything else is borrowed, 
imaginative where almost everything else is prosaic. 
We can scarcely hesitate to pronounce that the mag- 
nificent, pathetic, and truly national legends, which 
present so striking a contrast to all that surrounds 
them, are broken and defaced fragments of that early 
poetry which, even in the age of Cato the Censor, had 
become antiquated, and of which Tully had never 
heard a line. 

That this poetry should have been suffered to perish 
will not appear strange when we consider how com- 
plete was the triumph of the Greek genius over the 
public mind of Italy. It is probable that at an early 
period Homer and Herodotus furnished some hints to 
the Latin minstrels ; but it was not until after the war 
with Pyrrhus that the poetry of Rome began to put 
off its old Ausonian character. ... It is not im- 
probable that, at the time when Cicero lamented the 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LOED MACAULAY 377 

irreparable loss of the poems mentioned by Cato, a 
search among the nooks of the Apennines, as active as 
the search which Sir Walter Scott made among the 
descendants of the moss-troopers of Liddesdale, might 
have brought to light many fine remains of ancient 
minstrelsy. No such search was made. The Latin bal- 
lads perished forever. Yet discerning critics have 
thought that they could still perceive in the early his- 
tory of Rome numerous fragments of this lost poetry, 
as the traveler on classic ground sometimes finds, built 
into the heavy wall of a fort or convent, a pillar rich 
with acanthus leaves, or a frieze where the Amazons 
and Bacchanals seem to live. The theatres and tem- 
ples of the Greek and the Roman were degraded into 
the quarries of the Turk and the Goth. Even so did 
the ancient Saturnian poetry become the quarry in 
which a crowd of orators and annalists found the 
materials for their prose. 

It is not difficult to trace the process by which the 
old songs were transmuted into the form which they 
now wear. Funeral panegyric and chronicle appear 
to have been the intermediate links which connected 
the lost ballads with the histories now extant. From 
a very early period it was the usage that an oration 
should be pronounced over the remains of a noble 
Roman. The orator, as we learn from Polybius, was 
expected, on such an occasion, to recapitulate all the 
services which the ancestors of the deceased had, from 
the earliest time, rendered to the commonwealth. 
There can be little doubt that the speaker on whom 
this duty was imposed would make use of all the 
stories suited to his purpose which were to be found 



378 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

in the popular lays. There can be as little doubt that 
the family of an eminent man would preserve a copy 
of the speech which had been pronounced over his 
corpse. The compilers of the early chronicles would 
have recourse to these speeches, and the great histo- 
rians of a later period would have recourse to the 
chronicles. 

Such, or nearly such, appears to have been the 
process by which the lost ballad-poetry of Rome was 
transformed into history. To reverse that process, to 
transform some portions of early Roman history back 
into the poetry out of which they were made, is the 
object of this work. 

In the following poems the author speaks, not in his 
own person, but in the persons of ancient minstrels 
who know only what a Roman citizen, born three or 
four hundred years before the Christian era, may be 
supposed to have known, and who are in no wise above 
the passions and prejudices of their age and nation. 
To these imaginary poets must be ascribed some blun- 
ders, which are so obvious that it is unnecessary to 
point them out. The real blunder would have been 
to represent these old poets as deeply versed in general 
history, and studious of chronological accuracy. To 
them must also be attributed the illiberal sneers at the 
Greeks, the furious party spirit, the contempt for the 
arts of peace, the love of war for its own sake, the 
ungenerous exultation over the vanquished, which the 
reader will sometimes observe. To portray a Roman 
of the age of Camillas or Curius as superior to na- 
tional antipathies, as mourning over the devastation 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 379 



and slaughter by which empire and triumphs were to 
be won, as looking on human suffering with the sym- 
pathy of Howard, or as treating conquered enemies 
with the delicacy of the Black Prince, would be to 
violate all dramatic propriety. The old Romans had 
some great virtues, — fortitude, temperance, veracity, 
spirit to resist oppression, respect for legitimate 
authority, fidelity in the observing of contracts, dis- 
interestedness, ardent patriotism ; but Christian char- 
ity and chivalrous generosity were alike unknown to 
them. 

It would have been obviously improper to mimic the 
manner of any particular age or country. Something 
has been borrowed, however, from our own ballads, 
and more from Sir Walter Scott, the great restorer of 
our ballad-poetry. To the Iliad still greater obliga- 
tions are due; and those obligations have been con- 
tracted with the less hesitation because there is reason 
to believe that some of the old Latin minstrels really 
had recourse to that inexhaustible store of poetical 
images. 



HOKATIUS. 

There can be little doubt that among those parts of 
early Soman history which had a poetical origin was 
the legend of Horatius Codes. We have several ver- 
sions of the story, and these versions differ from each 
other in points of no small importance. Polybius, there 
is reason to believe, heard the tale recited over the 
remains of some consul or praetor descended from the 
old Horatian patricians ; for he introduces it as a speci- 
men of the narratives with which the Eomans were in 
the habit of embellishing their funeral oratory. It is 
remarkable that, according to him, Horatius defended 
the bridge alone, and perished in the waters. According 
to the chronicles which Livy and Dionysius followed, 
Horatms had two companions, swam safe to shore, and 
was loaded with honors and rewards. 

It is by no means unlikely that there were two old 
Soman lays about the defence of the bridge; and that, 
while the story which Livy has transmitted to us was 
preferred by the multitude, the other, which ascribed 
the whole glory to Horatius alone, may have been the 
favorite with the Horatian house. 

The following ballad is supposed to have been made 
about a hundred and twenty years after the war which 
it celebrates, and just before the taking of Some by the 
Gauls. The author seems to have been an honest citi- 
zen, proud of the military glory of his country, sick of 
the disputes of factions, and much given to pining after 
good old times which had never really existed. The 
allusion, however, to the partial manner in which the 
public lands were allotted could proceed only from a 
380 



HOEATIUS 381 

plebeian ; and the allusion to the fraudulent sale of spoils 
marks the date of the poem, and shows that the poet 
shared in the general discontent with which the pro- 
ceedings of Camillus, after the taking of Veii, were 
regarded. 

HOEATIUS. 

A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAS, OF THE CITY CCCLX. 
1 

Lars Porsena of Clusium 

By the Nine Gods he swore 
That the great house of Tarquin 

Should suffer wrong no more. 
5 By the Nine Gods he swore it, 

And named a trysting day, 
And bade his messengers ride forth 
East and west and south and north, 

To summon his array. 

2 
i East and west and south and north 

The messengers ride fast, 
And tower and town and cottage 
Have heard the trumpet's blast. 
Shame on the false Etruscan 
; Who lingers in his home, 

When Porsena of Clusium 
Is on the march for Eome. 

3 

The horsemen and the footmen 
Are pouring in amain 



382 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

• From many a stately market-place ; 

From many a fruitful plain; 
From many a lonely hamlet, 

Which, hid by beech and pine, 
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest 
i Of purple Apennine ; 



From lordly Volaterras, 

Where scowls the far-famed hold 
Piled by the hands of giants 

For godlike kings of old; 
From seagirt Populonia, 

Whose sentinels descry 
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops 

Fringing the southern sky; 



From the proud mart of Pisse, 

Queen of the western waves, 
Where ride Massilia's triremes 

Heavy with fair-haired slaves ; 
From where sweet Clanis wanders 

Through corn and vines and flowers; 
From where Cortona lifts to heaven 

Her diadem of towers. 



Tall are the oaks whose acorns 

Drop in dark Auser's rill; 
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs 

Of the Ciminian hill ; 




HORATIUS 383 



Beyond all streams Clitumnus 
Is to the herdsman dear; 

Best of all pools the fowler loves 
The great Yolsinian mere. 



But now no stroke of woodman 

Is heard by Auser's rill ; 
No hunter tracks the stag's green path 

Up the Ciminian hill ; 
Unwatched along Clitumnus 

Grazes the milk-white steer ; 
Unharmed the waterfowl may dip 

In the Volsinian mere. 



The harvest of Arretium, 

This year, old men shall reap, 
This year, young boys in Umbro 

Shall plunge the struggling sheep ; 
And in the vats of Luna, 

This year, the must shall foam 
Round the white feet of laughing girls 

Whose sires have marched to Borne. 



There be thirty chosen prophets, 
The wisest of the land, 

Who alway by Lars Porsena 
Both morn and evening stand : 

Evening and morn the Thirty 
Have turned the verses o'er, 



384 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Traeed from the right on linen white 
By mighty seers of yore. 

10 

And with one voice the Thirty 
'5 Have their glad answer given: 

"Go f orth, go forth, Lars Porsena ; 

Go forth, beloved of Heaven : 
Go, and return in glory 
To Clusiunr's royal dome ; 
io And hang round Nurscia's altars 

The golden shields of Rome " 

11 

And now hath every city 
Sent up her tale of men : 

The foot are fourscore thousand.^ 
5 The horse are thousands ten. 

Before the gates of Sutrium 
Is met the great array. 

A proud man was Lars Porsena 
Upon this trysting day. 

12 

For all the Etruscan armies 

Were ranged beneath his eye^ 
And many a banished Roman, 

And many a stout ally; 
And with a mighty following 
5 To join the muster came 

The Tusculan Mamilius, 
Prince of the Latian name. 



HORATIUS 385 

13 

But by the yellow Tiber 

Was tumult and affright : ■ 
From all the spacious champaign 

To Borne men took their flight. 
A mile around the city, 

The throng stopped up the ways ; 
A fearful sight it was to see 

Through two long nights and days. 

14 

For aged folks on crutches, 

And women great with child, 
And mothers sobbing over babes . 

That clung to them and smiled, 
And sick men borne in litters 

High on the necks of slaves, 
And troops of sunburnt husbandmen 

With reaping-hooks and staves, 

15 

And droves of mules and asses 

Laden with skins of wine, 
And endless flocks of goats and sheep., 

And endless herds of kine, 
And endless trains of wagons 

That creaked beneath the weight 
Of corn-sacks and of household goods, 

Choked every roaring gate. 

16 

Now, from the rock Tarpeian, 
Could the wan burghers spy 



386 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

The line of blazing villages 
25 Bed in the midnight sky. 

The Fathers of the City, 

They sat all night and day, 
For every hour some horseman came 

With tidings of dismay. 

17 

so To eastward and to westward 

Have spread the Tuscan bands ; 
Nor house nor fence nor dovecote 

In Crustumerium stands. 
Verbenna down to Ostia 
55 Hath wasted all the plain ; 

Astur hath stormed Janiculum, 
And the stout guards are slain. 

18 

Iwis, in all the Senate, 

There was no heart so bold, 
to But sore it ached, and fast it beat, 

When that ill news was told. 
Forthwith up rose the Consul, 

Up rose the Fathers all; 
In haste they girded up their gowns, 
15 And hied them to the wall. 

19 

They held a council standing 

Before the Eiver-G-ate ; 
Short time was there, ye well may guess, 

For musing or debate. 



HOEATIUS 3g7 

) Out spake the Consul roundly : 

"The bridge must straight go down ; 
For, since Janiculum is lost, 
Naught else can save the town." 

20 

Just then a scout came flying, 
, All wild with haste and fear ; 

"To arms ! to arms ! Sir Consul : 

Lars Porsena is here." 
On the low hills to westward 
The Consul fixed his eye, 
160 And saw the swarthy storm of dust 

Eise fast along the sky. 

21 

And nearer fast and nearer 

Doth the red whirlwind come ; 
And louder still and still more loud, 
165 From underneath that rolling cloud, 

Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, 

The trampling, and the hum. 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now through the gloom appears, 
170 Far to left and far to right, 

In broken gleams of dark-blue light, 
The long array of helmets bright, 

The long array of spears. 

22 

And plainly and more plainly 
175 Above that glimmering line, 



388 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Now might ye see the banners 
Of twelve fair cities shine ; 
But the banner of proud Clusium 
Was highest of them all, 
180 The terror of the Umbrian, 

The terror of the Gaul. 

23 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now might the burghers know, 
By port and vest, by horse and crest, 
185 Each warlike Lucumo. 

There Cilnius of Arretium 

On his fleet roan was seen ; 
And Astur of the four-fold shield, 
Girt with the brand none else may wield, 
190 Tolumnius with the belt of gold, 

And dark Verbenna from the hold 
By reedy Thrasymene. 

24 

Fast by the royal standard, 
Overlooking all the war, 
195 Lars Porsena of Clusium 

Sat in his ivory car. 
By the right wheel rode Mamilius, 

Prince of the 'Latian name ; • 
And by the left false Sextus, 
200 That wrought the deed of shame. 

25 

But when the face of Sextus 
Was seen among the foes, 



HOEATIUS 389 

A yell that rent the firmament 

From all the town arose. 
On the house-tops was no woman 

But spat towards him and hissed, 
No child but screamed out curses, 

And shook its little fist. 

26 

But the Consul's brow was sad, 

And the Consul's speech was low, 
And darkly looked he at the wall, 

And darkly at the foe. 
"Their van will be upon us 

Before the bridge goes down; 
And if they once may win the bridge, 

What hope to save the town?" 

; 27 
Then out spake brave Horatius, 

The Captain of the Gate : 
"To every man upon this earth 

Death cometh soon or late ; 
And how can man die better 

Than facing fearful odds. 
For the ashes of his fathers, 

And the temples of his Gods, 
28 
"And for the tender mother 

Who dandled him to rest, 
And for the wife who nurses 

His baby at her breast, 
And for the holy maidens 

Who feed the eternal flame, 



390 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

To save them from false Sextus 
That wrought the deed of shame? 

29 

"Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, 
With all the speed ye may ; 
235 I, with two more to help me, 

Will hold the foe in play. 
In yon strait path a thousand 

May well be stopped by three. 
Now who will stand on either hand, 
240 And keep the bridge with me ?" 

30 

Then out spake Spurius Lartius ; 

A Eamnian proud was he : 
"Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 
245 And out spake strong Herminius ; 

Of Titian blood was he : 
"I will abide on thy left side, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 

31 

"Horatius," quoth the Consul, 
250 "As thou sayest, so let it be." 

And straight against that great array 

Forth went the dauntless Three. 
For Eomans in Rome's quarrel 
Spared neither land nor gold, 
255 Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, 

In the brave days of old. 



HOBATIUS 391 

32 
Then none was for a party ; 

Then all were for the state ; 
Then the great man helped the poor, 

And the poor man loved the great : 
Then lands were fairly portioned ; 

Then spoils were fairly sold : 
The Romans were like brothers 

In the brave days of old. 

33 

Now Soman is to Roman 

More hateful than a foe, 
And the Tribunes beard the high, 

And the Fathers grind the low. 
As we wax hot in faction, 

In battle we wax cold : 
"Wherefore men fight not as they fought 

In the brave days of old. 

34 
Now while the Three were tightening 

Their harness on their backs, 
The Consul was the foremost man 

To take in hand an axe : 
And Fathers mixed with Commons 

Seized hatchet, bar, and crow, 
And smote upon the planks above, 

And loosed the props below. 

35 
Meanwhile the Tuscan army. 
Eight glorious to behold, 



392 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Came flashing back the noonday light, 
Eank behind rank, like surges bright 
285 Of a broad sea of gold. 

Four hundred trumpets sounded 

A peal of warlike glee, 
As that great host, with measured tread, 
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread, 
290 Eolled slowly towards the bridge's head, 

Where stood the dauntless Three. 

36 

The Three stood calm and silent, 

And looked upon the foes, 
And a great shout of laughter 
295 From all the vanguard rose ; 

And forth three chiefs came spurring 

Before that deep array; 
To earth they sprang, their swords they drew, 
And lifted high their shields, and flew 
aoo To win the narrow way; 

37 

Aunus from green Tifernum, 

Lord of the Hill of Vines ; 
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves 

Sicken in Ilva's mines ; 
305 And Picus, long to Clusium 

Vassal in peace and war, 
Who led to fight his Umbrian powers 
From that gray crag where, girt with towers, 
The fortress of Nequinum lowers 
310 O'er the pale waves of Nar. 



HORATIUS 393 

38 

Stout Lartius hurled down Annus 

Into the stream beneath : 
Herminius struck at Seius, 

And clove him to the teeth : 
315 At Picus brave Horatius 

Darted one fiery thrust ; 
And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms 

Clashed in the bloody dust. 

39 

Then Ocnus of Falerii 

Eushed on the Koman Three ; 
And Lausulus of Urgo, 

The rover of the sea ; 
And Aruns of Volsinium, 

Who slew the great wild boar, 
The great wild boar that had his den 
Amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen, 
And wasted fields, and slaughtered men, 

Along Albinia's shore. 

40 

Herminius smote down Aruns : 

Lartius laid Ocnus low : 
Eight to the heart of Lausulus 

Horatius sent a blow. 
"Lie there/' he cried, "fell pirate ! 

No more, aghast and pale, 
From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark 
The track of thy destroying bark. 
No more Campania's hinds shall fly 



394 SHOKTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

To woods and caverns when they spy 
Thy thrice accursed sail." 

41 

340 But now no sound of laughter 

Was heard among the foes. 
A wild and wrathful clamor 

From all the vanguard rose. 
Six spears' lengths from the entrance 
345 Halted that deep array, 

And for a space no man came forth 
To win the narrow way. 

42 

But hark ! the cry is Astur : 

And lo ! the ranks divide ; 

350 And the great Lord of Luna 

Comes with his stately stride. 
Upon his ample shoulders 

Clangs loud the four-fold shield, 
And in his hand he shakes the brand 
355 Which none but he can wield. 

43 

He smiled on those bold Eomans 

A smile serene and high ; 
He eyed the flinching Tuscans, 

And scorn was in his eye. 
360 Quoth he, "The she- wolf s litter 

Stand savagely at bay : 
But will ye dare to follow, 

Tf Astur clears the way ?" 



HOBATIUS 395 

44 

Then, whirling up his broadsword 

With both hands to the height, 
He rushed against Horatius, 

And smote with all his might. 
With .shield and blade Horatius 

Eight deftly turned the blow. 
The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh ; 
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh : 
The Tuscans raised a joyful cry 

To see the red blood flow. 

45 

He reeled, and on Herminius 

He leaned one breathing-space ; 
Then, like a wild-cat mad with wounds, 

Sprang right at Astur's face. 
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet, 

So fierce a thrust he sped, 
The good sword stood a handbreadth out 

Behind the Tuscan's head. 

46 

And the great Lord of Luna 

Fell at that deadly stroke, 
As falls on Mount Alvernus 

A thunder-smitten oak. 
Far o'er the crashing forest 

The giant arms lie spread ; 
And the pale augurs, muttering low, 

Gaze on the blasted head. 



396 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

47 

o On Astur's throat Horatius 

Eight fiercely pressed his heel, 
And thrice and four times tugged amain, 

Ere he wrenched ont the steel. 
"And see/' he cried, "the welcome, 
5 Fair guests, that waits you here ! 

What noble Lucumo comes next 
To taste our Eoman cheer ?" 

48 

But at his haughty challenge 
A sullen murmur ran, 
o Mingled of wrath and shame and dreads 

Along that glittering van. 
There lacked not men of prowess, 

Nor men of lordly race; 
For all Etrurians noblest 
5 Were round the fatal place. 



But all Etruria's noblest 

Felt their hearts sink to see 
On the earth the bloody corpses, 

In the path the dauntless Three : 
And, from the ghastly entrance 

Where those bold Eomans stood, 
All shrank, like boys who unaware, 
Eanging the woods to start a hare, 
Come to the mouth of the dark lair 
Where, growling low, a fierce old bear 

Lies amidst bones and blood. 



HOEATIUS 397 

50 

Was none who would be foremost 

To lead such dire attack : 
But those behind cried "Forward !" 

And those before cried "Back ¥■ 
And backward now and forward 

Wavers the deep array ; 
And on the tossing sea of steel, 
To and fro the standards reel ; 
And the victorious trumpet-peal 

Dies fitfully away. 

51 

Yet one man for one moment 

Stood out before the crowd ; 
Well known was he to all the Three, 

And they gave him greeting loud, 
"Now welcome, welcome, Sextus ! 

Now welcome to thy home ! 
Why dost thou stay, and turn away ? 

Here lies the road to Borne." 

52 

Thrice looked he at the city ; 

Thrice looked he at the dead; 
And thrice came on in fury, 

And thrice turned back in dread ; 
And, white with fear and hatred, 

Scowled at the narrow way 
Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, 

The bravest Tuscans lay. 



398 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

53 

But meanwhile axe and lever 
Have manfully been plied; 
445 And now the bridge hangs tottering 

Above the boiling tide. 
"Come back, come back, Horatius !" 

Loud cried the Fathers all. 
"Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 
450 Back, ere the ruin fall !" 

54 

Back darted Spurius Lartius; 

Herminius darted back : 
And, as they passed, beneath their feet 

They felt the timbers crack. 
455 But when they turned their faces, 

And on the farther shore 
Saw brave Horatius stand alone, 

They would have crossed once more. 

55 

But with a crash like thunder 
160 Fell every loosened beam, 

And, like a dam, the mighty wreck 

Lay right athwart the stream ; 
And a long shout of triumph 
Rose from the walls of Eome, 
465 As to the highest turret-tops 

Was splashed the yellow foam. 

56 
And, like a horse unbroken 
When first he feels the rein,, 



HOKATIUS 399 

The furious river struggled hard, 

And tossed his tawny mane, 
And burst the curb, and bounded, 

Eejoicing to be free, 
And whirling down, in fierce career 
Battlement, and plank, and pier, 

Bushed headlong to the sea. 

57 
Alone stood brave Horatius, 

But constant still in mind ; 
Thrice thirty thousand foes before, 

And the broad flood behind. 
"Down with him !" cried false Sextus,, 

With a smile on his pale face. 
"Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, 

"Now yield thee to our grace." 

58 
Eound turned he, as not deigning 

Those craven ranks to see ; 
Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, 

To Sextus naught spake he ; 
But he saw on Palatinus 

The white porch of his home ; 
And he spake to the noble river 

That rolls by the towers of Eoma. 

59 
."0 Tiber! father Tiber! 

To whom the Eomans pray, 
A Soman's life, a Soman's arms, 

Take thou in charge this day !" 



400 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

So he spake, and, speaking, sheathed 
The good sword by his side, 

And with his harness on his back 
Plunged headlong in the tide. 

60 

jo No sound of joy or sorrow 

Was heard from either bank ; 
But friends and foes in dumb surprise, 
With parted lips and straining eyes, 

Stood gazing where he sank ; • 
)5 And when above the surges 

They saw his crest appear, 
All Eome sent forth a rapturous cry. 
And even the ranks of Tuscany 

Could scarce forbear to cheer. 

61 

io But fiercely ran the current, 

Swollen high by months of rain : 
And fast his blood was flowing, 

And he was sore in pain, 
And heavy with his armor, 
L5 And spent with changing blows : 

And oft they thought him sinking, 
But still again he rose. 

62 

Never, I ween, did swimmer, 
In such an evil, case, 
JO Struggle through such a raging flood 

Safe to the landing-place : ,. ' 



HOEATIUS 401 

But his limbs were borne up bravely 

By the brave heart within; 
And our good father Tiber 
525 Bore bravely up his chin. 

63 

"Curse on him !" quoth false Sextus ; 

"Will not the villain drown ? 
But for this stay, ere close of day 

We should have sacked the town!" 
580 "Heaven help him !" quoth Lars Porsena, 

"And bring him safe to. shore ; 
For such a gallant feat of arms 

Was never seen before." 



And now he feels the bottom ; 
535 Now on dry earth he stands ; 

Now round him throng the Fathers 

To press his gory hands • 
i^nd now, with shouts and clapping, 
And noise of weeping loud, 
540 He enters through the Kiver-Gate, 

Borne by the joyous crowd. 

65 

They gave him of the corn-land, 
That was of public right, 

As much as two strong oxen 
545 Could plough from morn till night ; 

And they made a molten image, 
And set it up on high, 



402 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

And there it stands unto this day 
To witness if I lie. 

66 

550 It stands in the Comitium, 

Plain for all folk to see ; 
Horatius in his harness, 

Halting upon one knee : 
And underneath is written, 
555 In letters all of gold, 

How valiantly he kept the bridge 
In the brave days of old. 

67 

And still his name sounds stirring 
Unto the men of Kome, 
560 As the trumpet-blast that cries to them 

To charge the Volscian home ; 
And wives still pray to Juno 

For boys with hearts as bold 
As his who kept the bridge so well 
565 In the brave days of old. 

68 

And in the nights of winter, 

When the cold north-winds blow, 
And the long howling of the wolves 

Is heard amidst the snow ; 
570 When round the lonely cottage 

Eoars loud the tempest's din, 
And the good logs of Algidus 

Roar louder yet within : 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 403 
69 

When the oldest cask is opened, 
3 And the largest lamp is lit ; 

When the chestnuts glow in the embers, 

And the kid turns on the spit ; 
When young and old in circle 
Around the firebrands close ; 
When the girls are weaving baskets 

And the lads are shaping bows ; 

70 

When the goodman mends his armor, 

And trims his helmet's plume ; 
When the goodwifVs shuttle merrily 
i Goes flashing through the loom, — 

With weeping and with laughter 

Still is the story told, 
How well Horatius kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 

THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS. 

The following poem is supposed to have been pro- 
duced ninety years after the lay of Horatius. Some 
persons mentioned in the lay of Horatius make' their 
appearance again, and some appellations and epithets 
used in the lay of Horatius have been purposely re- 
peated; for, in an age of ballad-poetry, it scarcely ever 
fails to happen that certain phrases come to be appro- 
priated to certain men and things, and are regularly 
applied to those men and things by every minstrel. 

The principal distinction between the lay of Horatius 
and the lay of the Lake Eegillus is, that the former 



404 CHOBTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

is meant to be purely Eoman, while the latter, though 
national in its general spirit, has a slight tincture of 
Greek learning and of Greek superstition. The story of 
the Tarquins, as it has come down to us, appears to 
have been compiled from the works of several popular 
poets; and one at least of those poets appears to have 
visited the Greek colonies in Italy, if not Greece itself, 
and to have had some acquaintance with the works of 
Homer and Herodotus. Many of the most striking ad- 
ventures of the house of Tarquin, before Lucretia makes 
her appearance, have a Greek character. 

In the following poem, therefore, images and inci- . 
dents have been borrowed, not merely without scruple, 
but on principle, from the incomparable battle-pieces of 
Homer. 

The popular belief at Eome, from an early period, 
seems to have been that the event of the great day of 
Eegillus was decided by supernatural agency. Castor 
and Pollux, it is said, had fought, armed and mounted, 
at the head of the legions of the commonwealth, and 
had afterwards carried the news of the victory with 
incredible speed to the city. The well in the Forum 
at which they had alighted was pointed out. Near the 
well rose their ancient temple. A great festival was 
kept to their honor on the ides of Quintilis, supposed to 
be the anniversary of the battle ; and on that day sump- 
tuous sacrifices were offered to them at the public charge. 
One spot of the margin of Lake Eegillus was regarded 
during many ages with superstitious awe. A mark, 
resembling in shape a horse's hoof, was discernible in 
the volcanic rock ; and this mark was believed to have 
been made by one of the celestial chargers. 

It is therefore conceivable that the appearance of 
Castor and Pollux may have become an article of faith 
before the generation which had fought at Eegillus had 
passed away. Nor could anything be more natural than 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 405 

that the poets of the next. age should embellish this 
story, and make the celestial horsemen bear the tidings 
of victory to Eome. ... It was ordained that a 
grand muster and inspection of the equestrian body [the 
knights of Eome] should be part of the ceremonial 
performed on the anniversary of the battle of Eegillus 
in honor of Castor and Pollux, the two equestrian gods. 
All the knights, clad in purple and crowned with olive, 
were to meet at the Temple of Mars in the suburbs. 
Thence they were to ride in state to the Forum, where 
the Temple of the Twins stood. This pageant was, dur- 
ing several centuries, considered as one of the most 
splendid sights of Eome. In the time of Dionysius the 
cavalcade sometimes consisted of five thousand horse- 
men, all persons of fair repute and easy fortune. 

Songs, we know, were chanted at the religious festivals 
of Eome from an early period; indeed, from so early a 
period that some of the sacred verses were popularly 
ascribed to Numa and were utterly unintelligible in the 
age of Augustus. . . . It is therefore likely that 
the Censors and Pontiffs, when they had resolved to add 
a grand procession of knights to the other solemnities 
annually performed on the ides of Quintilis, would call 
in the aid of a poet. 

THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS. 

A LAY SUNG AT THE FEAST OF CASTOR AND POLLUX ON 

THE IDES OF QUINTILIS, IN THE YEAR 

OF THE CITY CCCCLI. 

1 

Ho, trumpets, sound a war note ! 

Ho, lictors, clear the way ! 
The Knights will ride in all their pride 

Along the streets to-day. 



406 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

To-day the doors and windows 

Are hung with garlands all, 
From Castor in the Forum 

To Mars without the wall. 
Each Knight is robed in purple, 

With olive each is crowned ; 
A gallant war-horse under each 

Paws haughtily the ground. 
While flows the Yellow River, 

While stands the Sacred Hill, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Shall have such honor still. 
Gay are the Martian Kalends : 

December's Nones are gay : 
But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides, 

Shall be Rome's whitest day. 



Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

We keep this solemn feast. 
Swift, swift, the Great Twin Brethren 

Came spurring from the east. 
They came o'er wild Parthenius, 

Tossing in waves of pine, 
O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam, 

O'er purple Apennine, 
From where with flutes and dances 

Their ancient mansion rings, 
In lordly Lacedsemon, 

The City of two kings, 
To where, by Lake Regillus, 

Under the Porcian height, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 407 

All in the lands of Tusculum, 
Was fought the glorious fight. 



Now on the place of slaughter 

Are cots and sheepfolds seen, 
And rows of vines, and fields of wheat, 

And apple-orchards green ; 
The swine crush the big acorns 

That fall from Corne's oaks. 
Upon the turf by the Fair Fount 

The reaper's pottage smokes. 
The fisher baits his angle ; 

The hunter twangs his bow ; 
Little they think on those strong limbs 

That moulder deep below. 
Little they think how sternly 

That day the trumpets pealed ; 
How in the slippery swamp of blood 

Warrior and war-horse reeled; 
How wolves came with fierce gallop, 

And crows on eager wings, ;. 

To tear the flesh of captains, 

And peck the eyes of kings ; 
How thick the dead lay scattered 

Under the Porcian height ; 
How through the gates of Tusculum 

Eaved the wild stream of flight; 
And how the Lake Eegillus 

Bubbled with crimson foam, 
What time the Thirty Cities 

Came forth to war with Rome. 



408 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 



But, Roman, when thou standest 

Upon that holy ground, 
Look thou with heed on the dark rock 

That girds the dark lake round, 
So shalt thou see a hoof -mark 

Stamped deep into the flint: 
It was no hoof of mortal steed 

That made so strange a dint: 
There to the Great Twin Brethren 

Vow thou thy vows, and pray 
That they, in tempest and in fight, 

Will keep thy head alway. 



Since last the Great Twin Brethren 

Of mortal eyes were seen, 
Have years gone by an hundred 

And fourscore and thirteen. 
That summer a Virginius 

Was Consul first in place ; 
The second was stout Aulus, 

Of the Posthumian race. 
The Herald of the Latines 

From Gabii came in state : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Passed through Pome's Eastern Gate: 
The Herald of the Latines 

Did in our Forum stand ; 
And there he did his office, 

A sceptre in his hand. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 409 



"Hear, Senators and people 

Of the good town of Kome, 
The Thirty Cities charge you 

To bring the Tarquins home ; 
And if ye still be stubborn, 

To work the Tarquins wrong, 
The Thirty Cities warn you, 

Look that your walls be strong." 



Then spake the Consul Aulus, 

He spake a bitter jest : 
"Once the jays sent a message 
. Unto the eagle's nest : 
Now yield thou up thine eyrie 

Unto the carrion-kite, 
Or come forth valiantly, and face 

The jays in mortal fight. 
Forth looked in wrath the eagle ; 

And carrion-kite and jay, 
Soon as they saw his beak and claw, 

Fled screaming far away." 



The Herald of the Latines 
Hath hied him back in state ; 

The Fathers of the City 
Are met in high debate. 

Thus spake the elder Consul, 
An ancient man and wise : 



_ 



410 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

"jSTow hearken, Conscript Fathers, 
:0 To that which I advise. 

In seasons of great peril 

'T is good that one bear sway ; 
Then choose we a Dictator, 
Whom all men shall obey. 
5 Camerium knows how deeply 

The sword of Aulus bites, 
And all our city calls him 

The man of seventy fights. 
Then let him be Dictator 
For six months and no more, 

And have a Master of the Knights, 
And axes twenty-four." 



So Aulus was Dictator, 

The man of seventy fights ; 
135 He made iEbutius Elva 

His Master of the Knights. 
On the third morn thereafter, 

At dawning of the day, 
Did Aulus and iEbutius 
140 Set forth with their array. 

Sempronius Atratinus 

Was left in charge at home 
With boys, and with gray-headed men, 

To keep the walls of Kome. 
145 Hard by the Lake Eegillus 

Our camp was pitched at night ; 
Eastward a mile the Latines lay, 

Under the Porcian height. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 4^ 

Far over hill and valley 

Their mighty host was spread ; 
And with their thousand watch-fires 

The midnight sky was red. 

10 

Up rose the golden morning 

Over the Porcian height, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Marked evermore with white. 
Not without secret trouble 

Our bravest saw the foes; 
For girt by threescore thousand spears 5 

The thirty standards rose. 
From every warlike city 

That boasts the Latian name, 
Foredoomed to dogs and vultures, 

That gallant army came; 
From Setia's purple vineyards, 

From Norba's ancient wall, 
From the white streets of Tusculum, 

The proudest town of all; 
From where the Witch's Fortress 

O'erhangs the dark-blue seas; 
From the still glassy lake that sleeps 

Beneath Aricia's trees, — 
Those trees in whose dim shadow 

The ghastly priest doth reign, 
The priest who slew the slayer, 

And shall himself be slain ; 
From the drear banks of Ufens, 

Where flights of marsh-fowl play, 



412 SHOKTE.R ENGLISH POEMS 

And buffaloes lie wallowing 
180 Through the hot summer's day ; 

From the gigantic watch-towers, 

No work of earthly men, 
Whence Cora's sentinels overlook 

The never-ending fen ; 
185 From the Laurentian jungle, 

The wild hog's reedy home ; 
From the green steeps whence Anio leaps 

In floods of snow-white foam. 

11 

Aricia, Cora, Norba, 
190 Velitrse, with the might 

Of Setia and of Tusculum, 

Were marshalled on the right : 
The leader was Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name ; 
195 Upon his head a helmet 

Of red gold shone like flame ; 
High on a gallant charger 

Of dark-gray hue he rode; 
Over his gilded armor 
200 A vest of purple flowed, 

Woven in the land of sunrise 

By Syria's dark-browed daughters, 
And by the sails of Carthage brought 

Far o'er the southern waters. 

12 

205 Lavinium and Laurentum 

Had on the left their post, 






BATTLE OE THE LAKE EEGILLUS 413 

With all the banners of the marsh, 

And banners of the coast. 
Their leader was false Sextus, 

That wrought the deed of shame : 
With restless pace and haggard face 

To his last field he came. 
Men said he saw strange visions 

Which none beside might see, 
And that strange sounds were in his ears, 

Which none might hear but he. 
A woman fair and stately, 

But pale as are the dead, 
Oft through the watches of the night 

Sat spinning by his bed. 
And as she plied the distaff, 

In a sweet voice and low, 
She sang of great old houses, 

And fights fought long ago. 
So spun she, and so sang she, 

Until the east was gray, 
Then pointed to her bleeding breast, 

And shrieked, and fled away. 

13 

But in the centre thickest 

Were ranged the shields of foes, 
And from the centre loudest 

The cry of battle rose. 
There Tibur marched and Pedum 

Beneath proud Tarquin's rule, 
And Ferentinum of the rock, 

And Gabii of the pool. 



414 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

There rode the Volscian succors : 
There, in a dark stern ring, 

The Eoman exiles gathered close 
i Around the ancient king. 

Though white as Mount Soracte, 
When winter nights are long, 

His beard flowed down o'er mail and belt, 
His heart and hand were strong • 

> Under his hoary eyebrows 

Still flashed forth quenchless rage, 
And, if the lance shook in his gripe, 

'T was more with hate than age. 
Close at his side was Titus 
I On an Apulian steed, 

Titus, the youngest Tarquin, 

Too good for such a breed. 

14 

Now on each side the leaders 
Gave signal for the charge ; 

> And on each side the footmen 

Strode on with lance and targe ; 
And on each side the horsemen 

Struck their spurs deep in gore, 
And front to front the armies 
) Met with a mighty roar : 

And under that great battle 

The earth with blood was red ; 
And, like the Pomptine fog at morn, 

The dust hung overhead ; 
3 And louder still and louder 

Eose from the darkened field 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 415 

The braying of the war-horns, 

The clang of sword and shield, 
The rush of squadrons sweeping 

Like whirlwinds o'er the plain, 
The shouting of the slayers, 

And screeching of the slain. 

15 

False Sextus rode out foremost ; 

His look was high and bold ; 
His corselet was of bison's hide, 

Plated with steel and gold. 
As glares the famished eagle 

From the Digentian rock 
On a choice lamb that bounds alone 

Before Bandusia's flock, 
Herminius glared on Sextus, 

And came with eagle speed, 
Herminius on black Auster, 

Brave champion on brave steed ; 
In his right hand the broadsword 

That kept the bridge so well, 
And on his helm the crown he won 

When proud Fidenas fell. 
Woe to the maid whose lover 

Shall cross his path to-day ! 
False Sextus saw, and trembled, 

And turned, and fled away. 
As turns, as flies, the woodman 

In the Calabrian brake, 
When through the reeds gleams the round eye 

Of that fell speckled snake ; 



416 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

So turned, so fled, false Sextus, 

And hid him in the rear, 
Behind the dark Lavinian ranks, 
300 Bristling with crest and spear. 

16 

But far to north iEbutius, 

The Master of the Knights, 
Gave Tubero of Norba 

To feed the Porcian kites. 
305 Next under those red horse-hoofs 

Flaccus of Setia lay ; 
Better had he been pruning 

Among his elms that day. 
Mamilius saw the slaughter, 
310 And tossed his golden crest, 

And towards the Master of the Knights 

Through the thick battle pressed. 
iEbutius smote Mamilius 

So fiercely on the shield, 
315 That the great lord of Tusculum 

Wellnigh rolled on the field. 
Mamilius smote iEbutius, 

With a good aim and true, 
Just where the neck and shoulder join, 
320 And pierced him through and through; 

And brave iEbutius Elva 

Fell swooning to the ground, 
But a thick wall of bucklers 

Encompassed him around. 
^ 25 His clients from the battle 

Bare him some little space, 




BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 417 

And filled a helm from the dark lake, 
And bathed his brow and face; 

And when at last he opened 
330 His swimming eyes to light, 

Men say, the earliest word he spake 
Was, "Friends, how goes the fight ?" 

17 

But meanwhile in the centre 

Great deeds of arms were wrought; 
335 There Aulus the Dictator 

And there Valerius fought. 
Aulus with his good broadsword 

A bloody passage cleared 
To where, amidst the thickest foes, 
340 He saw the long white beard. 

Flat lighted that good broadsword 

Upon proud Tarqunr's head. 
He dropped the lance ; he dropped the reins ; 
He fell as fall the dead. 
345 Down Aulus springs to slay him, 

With eyes like coals of fire ; 
But faster Titus hath sprung down, 

And hath bestrode his sire. 
Latian captains, Boman knights, 
350 Fast down to earth they spring, 

And hand to hand they fight on foot 

Around the ancient king. 
First Titus gave tall Cseso 
A death wound in the face ; 
355 Tall Cseso was the bravest man 

Of the brave Fabian race : 



418 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Aulus slew Eex of Gabii, 

The priest of Juno's shrine : 
Valerius smote down Julius, 
360 Of Home's great Julian line; 

Julius, who left his mansion 

High on the Velian hill, 
And through all turns of weal and woe 

Followed proud Tarquin still. 
365 Now right across proud Tarquin 

A corpse was Julius laid ; 
And Titus groaned with rage and grief, 

And at Valerius made. 
Valerius struck at Titus, 
370 And lopped off half his crest ; 

But Titus stabbed Valerius 

A span deep in the breast. 
Like a mast snapped by the tempest, 

Valerius reeled and fell. 
375 Ah ! woe is me for the good house 

That loves the people well ! 
Then shouted loud the Latines, 

And with one rush they bore 
The struggling Romans backward 
380 Three lances' length and more ; 

And up they took proud Tarquin, 

And laid him on a shield, 
And four strong yeomen bare him, 

Still senseless, from the field. 

18 

385 But fiercer grew the fighting 

Around Valerius dead : 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS 419 

For Titus dragged him by the foot, 

And Aulus by the head. 
"On, Latines, on I" quoth Titus, 

"See how the rebels fly !" 
"Bomans, stand firm !." quoth Aulus, 

"And win this fight or die ! 
They must not give Valerius 

To raven and to kite • 
For aye Valerius loathed the wrong, 

And aye upheld the right; 
And for your wives and babies 

In the front rank he fell. 
Now play the men for the good house 

That loves the people well !" 

19 

Then tenfold round the body 

The roar of battle rose, 
Like the roar of a burning forest 

When a strong north-wind blows. 
Now backward, and now forward, 

Eocked furiously the fray, 
Till none could see Valerius, 

And none wist where he lay. 
For shivered arms and ensigns 

Were heaped there in a mound, 
And corpses stiff, and dying men 

That writhed and gnawed the ground ; 
And wounded horses kicking, 

And snorting purple foam ; 
Eight well did such a couch befit 

A Consular of Eome. 



420 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

20 

But north looked the Dictator; 

North looked he long and hard ; 
And spake to Cains Cossus, 
420 The Captain of his Guard : 

"Cains, of all the Eomans 

Thon hast the keenest sight ; 
Say, what through yonder storm of dust 

Comes from the Latian right ?" 

21 

425 Then answered Caius Cossus : 

"I see an evil sight : 
The banner of proud Tusculum 
Comes from the Latian right; 
I see the plumed horsemen ; 
430 And far before the rest 

I see the dark-gray charger, 

I see the purple vest ; 
I see the golden helmet 

That shines far off like flame ; 
435 So ever rides Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name." 

22 

"Now hearken, Caius Cossus : 
Spring on thy horse's back; 

Eide as the wolves of Apennine 
440 Were all upon thy track; 

Haste to our southward battle, 
And never draw thy rein 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 421 

Until thou find Herminius, 
And bid him come amain." 

23 

So Aulus spake, and turned him 

Again to that fierce strife; 
And Caius Cossus mounted, 

And rode for death and life. 
Loud clanged beneath his horse-hoofs 
450 The helmets of the dead, 

And many a curdling pool of blood 

Splashed him from heel to head. 
So came he far to southward, 

Where fought the Eoman host, 
Against the banners of the marsh 

And banners of the coast. 
Like corn before the sickle 

The stout Lavinians fell, 
Beneath the edge of the true sword 
460 That kept the bridge so well. 

24 

"Herminius ! Aulus greets thee ; 

He bids thee come with speed, 
To help our central battle ; 

For sore is there our need. 
465 There wars the youngest Tarquin, 

And there the Crest of Flame, 
The Tusculan Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 
Valerius hath fallen fighting 
470 In front of our array, 



422 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

And Aulus of the seventy fields 
Alone upholds the day." 

25 

Herminius beat his bosom, 
But never a word he spake. 
> He clapped his hand on Auster's mane, 

He gave the reins a shake. 
Away, away went Auster, 

Like an arrow from the bow ; 
Black Auster was the fleetest steed 
» From Aufidus to Po. 

26 

Eight glad were all the Eomans 

Who, in that hour of dread, 
Against great odds bare up the war 

Around Valerius dead, 
» When from the south the cheering 

Eose with a mighty swell : 
"Herminius comes, Herminius, 

Who kept the bridge so well !" 

27 

Mamilius spied Herminius, 

And dashed across the way. 
"Herminius ! I have sought thee 

Through many a bloody day. 
One of us two, Herminius, 

Shall nevermore go home, 
i I will lay on for Tusculum, 

And lay thou on for Eome V 9 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE BEGILLUS 423 

28 

All round them paused the battle, 

While met in mortal fray 
The Eoman and the Tusculam 
50C The horses black and gray. 

Herminius smote Mamilius 

Through breastplate and through breast ; 
And fast flowed out the purple blood 

Over the purple vest. 
&05 Mamilius smote Herminius 

Through head-piece and through head; 
And side by side those chiefs of pride 

Together fell down dead. 
Down fell they dead together 
&lfc In a great lake of gore ; 

And still stood all who saw them fall 

While men might count a score. 

29 

Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning, 

The dark-gray charger fled; 
515 He burst through ranks of fighting men, 

He sprang o'er heaps of dead. 
His bridle far out-streaming, 

His flanks all blood and foam, 
He sought the southern mountains, 
520 The mountains of his home. 

The pass was steep and rugged, 

The wolves they howled and whined ; 
But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass, 

And he left the wolves behind. 



424 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

525 Through many a startled hamlet 

Thundered his flying feet ; 
He rushed through the gate of Tusculum, 

He rushed up the long white street ; 
He rushed by tower and temple, 
530 And paused not from his race 

Till he stood before his master's door 

In the stately market-place. 
And straightway round him gathered 
A pale and trembling crowd, 
535 And when they knew him, cries of rage 

Brake forth, and wailing loud : 
And women rent their tresses 

For their great prince's fall ; 
And old men girt on their old swords, 
540 And went to man the wall. 

30 

But, like a graven image, 

Black Auster kept his place, 
And ever wistfully he looked 

Into his master's face. 
545 The raven-mane that daily, 

With pats and fond caresses, 
The young Herminia washed and combed, 

And twined in even tresses, 
And decked with colored ribands 
550 From her own gay attire, 

Hung sadly o'er her father's corpse 

In carnage and in mire. 
Forth with a shout sprang Titus, 

And seized black Auster's rein. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 425 

Then Aulus sware a fearful oath, 

And ran at him amain. 
"The furies of thy brother 

With me and mine abide, 
If one of your accursed house 

Upon black Auster ride !" 
As on an Alpine watch-tower 

From heaven comes down the flame, 
Full on the neck of Titus 

The blade of Aulus came; 
And out the red blood spouted, 

In a wide arch and tall, 
As spouts a fountain in the court 

Of some rich Capuan's hall. 
The knees of all the Latines 

Were loosened with dismay 
When dead, on dead Herminius, 

The bravest Tarquin lay. 

31 

And Aulus the Dictator 

Stroked Auster's raven mane, 
With heed he looked unto the girths, 

With heed unto the rein. 
"Now bear me well, black Auster, 

Into yon thick array ; 
And thou and I will have revenge 

For thy good lord this day." 

32 

So spake he ; and was buckling 
Tighter black Auster's band, 



426 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

When he was aware of a princely pair 

That rode at his right hand. 
585 So like they were, no mortal 

Might one from other know; 
White as snow their armor was, 

Their steeds were white as snow. 
Never on earthly anvil 
590 Did such rare armor gleam ; 

And never did such gallant steeds 

Drink of an earthly stream. 

33 

And all who saw them trembled, 
And pale grew every cheek; 
595 And Aulus the Dictator 

Scarce gathered voice to speak. 
"Say by what name men call yon? 

What city is yonr home ? 
And wherefore ride ye in such guise 
wo Before the ranks of Rome ?" 

34 

"By many names men call us ; 

In many lands we dwell : 
Well Samothracia knows us ; 
Cyrene knows us well. 
605 Our house in gay Tarentum 

Is hung each morn with flowers ; 
High o'er the masts of Syracuse 

Our marble portal towers ; 
But by the proud Eurotas 
610 Is our dear native home ; 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE KEGILLUS 427 

And for the right we come to fight 
Before the ranks of Rome." 

35 

So answered those strange horsemen, 

And each couched low his spear ; 
'- And forthwith all the ranks of Eome 

Were bold, and of good cheer. 
And on the thirty armies 

Came wonder and affright, 
And Ardea wavered on the left, 

And Cora on the right. 
"Eome to the charge !" cried Aulus ; 

"The foe begins to yield ! 
Charge for the hearth of Vesta ! 

Charge for the Golden Shield ! 
Let no man stop to plunder, 

But slay, and slay, and slay; 
The gods who live forever 

Are on our side to-day/"' 

36 

Then the fierce trumpet-flourish 

From earth to heaven arose. 
The kites know well the long stern swell 

That bids the Romans close. 
Then the good sword of Aulus 

Was lifted up to slay ; 
685 Then, like a crag down Apennine, 

Eushed Auster through. the fray. 
But under those strange horsemen 

Still thicker lay the slain ; 



428 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And after those strange horses 
640 Black Auster toiled in vain. 

Behind them Pome's long battle 

Came rolling on the foe, 
Ensigns dancing wild above, 
Blades all in line below. 
845 So comes the Po in flood-time 

Upon the Celtic plain ; 
So comes the squall, blacker than night, 

Upon the Adrian main. 
Now, by our Sire Quirimis, 
650 It was a goodly sight 

To see the thirty standards 

Swept down the tide of flight. 
So flies the spray of Adria 

"When the black squall doth blow, 
655 So corn-sheaves in the flood-time 

Spin down the whirling Po. 
False Sextus to the mountains 

Turned first his horse's head; 
And fast fled Ferentinum, 
660 And fast Lavinium fled. 

The horsemen of Momentum 

Spurred hard out of the fray; 
The footmen of Velitrse 

Threw shield and spear away. 
W5 And underfoot was trampled, 

Amidst the mud and gore, 
The banner of proud Tusculum, 

That never stooped before. 
And down went Flavius Faustus, 
670 Who led his stately ranks 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE BEGILLTJS 429 

From where the apple-blossoms wave 

On Anio's echoing banks, 
And Tullus of Arpinum, 

Chief of the Volscian aids, 
And Metius with the long fair curls, 

The love of Anxur's maids, 
And the white head of Vnlso, 

The great Arician seer, 
And Nepos of Laurentum, 

The hunter of the deer ; 
And in the back false Sextus 

Felt the good Soman steel, 
And wriggling in the dust he died, 

Like a worm beneath the wheel. 
And fliers and pursuers 

Were mingled in a mass, 
And far away the battle 

Went roaring through the pass. 

37 

Sempronius Atratinus 

Sate in the Eastern Gate, 
Beside him were three Fathers, 

Each in his chair of state ; 
Fabius, whose nine stout grandsons 

That day were in the field, 
And Manlius, eldest of the Twelve 

Who kept the Golden Shield ; 
And Sergius, the High Pontiff, 

For wisdom far renowned ; 
In all Etrurians colleges 

Was no such Pontiff found. 



430 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And all around the portal, 

And high above the wall, 
Stood a great throng of people, 

But sad and silent all ; 
705 Young lads, and stooping elders 

That might not bear the mail, 
Matrons with lips that quivered, 

And maids with faces pale. 
Since the first gleam of daylight, 
710 Sempronius had not ceased 

To listen for the rushing 

Of horse-hoofs from the east. 
The mist of eve was rising, 

The sun was hastening down, 
715 When he was aware of a princely pair 

Fast pricking towards the town. 
So like they were, man never 

Saw twins so like before ; 
Eed with gore their armor was, 
720 Their steeds were red with gore. 

38 

"Hail to the great Asylum ! 

Hail to the hill-tops seven ! 
Hail to the fire that burns for aye, 
And the shield that fell from heaveu 
725 This day, by Lake Eegillus, 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum 

"Was fought a glorious fight ; 
To-morrow your Dictator 
730 Shall bring in triumph home 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS 431 

The spoils of thirty cities 

To deck the shrines of Eome !" 

39 

Then burst from that great concourse 

A shout that shook the towers, 
And some ran north, and some ran south, 

Crying, "The day is ours !" 
But on rode these strange horsemen, 

With slow and lordly pace ; 
And none who saw their bearing 

Durst ask their name or race. 
On rode they to the Forum, 

While laurel-boughs and flowers, 
From house-tops and from windows, 

Fell on their crests in showers. 
When they drew nigh to Vesta, 

They vaulted down amain, 
And washed their horses in the well 

That springs by Vesta's fane. 
And straight again they mounted, 

And rode to Vesta's door ; 
Then, like a blast, away they passed, 

And no man saw them more. 

40 

And all the people trembled, 

And pale grew every cheek ; 
And Sergius the High Pontiff 

Alone found voice to speak : 
"The gods who live forever 

Have fought for Eome to-day ! 



432 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

These be the Great Twin Brethren 
760 To whom the Dorians pray. 

Back comes the Chief in triumph 

Who, in the hour of fight, 
Hath seen the Great Twin Brethren 
In harness on his right. 
765 Safe comes the ship to haven, 

Through billows and through gales. 
If once the Great Twin Brethren 

Sit shining on the sails. 
Wherefore they washed their horses 
770 In Vesta's holy well, 

Wherefore they rode to Testa's door, 

I know, but may not tell. 
Here, hard by Vesta's Temple, 
Build we a stately dome 
775 Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

Who fought so well for Eome. 
And when the months returning 

Bring back this day of fight, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis, 
780 Marked evermore with white, 

Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

Let all the people throng. 
With chaplets and with offerings, 
.With music and with song ; 
785 And let the doors and windows 

Be hung with garlands all, 
And let the Knights be summoned 

To Mars without the wall. 
Thence let them ride in purple 
790 With joyous trumpet-sound, 



VIEGINIA 433 

Each mounted on his war-horse, 

And each with olive crowned ; 
And pass in solemn order 

Before the sacred dome, 
795 Where dwell the Great Twin Brethren 

Who fought so well for Eome !" 

VIEGINIA. 

A collection consisting exclusively of war-songs would 
give an imperfect, or rather an erroneous, notion of 
the spirit of the old Latin ballads. The Patricians, 
during more than a century after the expulsion of the 
Kings, held all the high military commands. A Plebeian, 
even though, like Lucius Siccius, he were distinguished 
by his valor and knowledge of war, could serve only in 
subordinate posts. A minstrel, therefore, who wished 
to celebrate the early triumphs of his country, could 
hardly take any but Patricians for his heroes. The 
warriors who are mentioned in the two preceding lays — 
Horatius, Lartius, Herminius, Aulus Posthumius, iEbu- 
. tins Elva, Sempronius Atratinus, Valerius Poplicola — 
were all members of the dominant order. 

But there was a class of compositions in which the 
great families were by no means so courteously treated. 
No parts of early Eoman history are richer with poetical 
coloring than those which relate to the long contest 
between the privileged houses and the commonalty. The 
population of Eome was, from a very early period, 
divided into hereditary castes, which, indeed, readily 
united to repel foreign enemies, but which regarded each 
other, during many years, with bitter animosity. . . . 
Among the grievances under which the Plebeians suf- 
- fered, three were felt as peculiarly severe. They were 
excluded from the highest magistracies; they were ex- 
cluded from all share in the public land; and they were 
ground down to the dust by partial and barbarous legis- 
lation touching pecuniary contracts 



434 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

The Plebeians were, however, not wholly without con- 
stitutional rights. From an early period they had been 
admitted to some share of political power. . . . The 
Plebeians had also the privilege of annually appointing 
officers, named Tribunes, who had no active share in the 
government of the Commonwealth, but who, by degrees, 
acquired a power formidable even to the ablest and most 
resolute Consuls and Dictators. The person of the 
Tribune was inviolable; and, though he could directly 
effect little, he could obstruct everything. 

During more than a century after the institution of 
the Tribuneship, the Commons struggled manfully for 
the removal of grievances under which they labored; 
and, in spite of many checks and reverses, succeeded in 
wringing concession after concession from the stubborn 
aristocracy. At length, in the year of the city 378, 
both parties mustered their whole strength for their last 
and most desperate conflict. The popular and active 
Tribune, Caius Licinius, proposed the three memorable 
laws which are called by his name, and which were 
intended to redress the three great evils of which the 
Plebeians complained. 

During the great Licinian contest the Plebeian poets 
were, doubtless, not silent. . . . These minstrels, as 
JSTiebuhr has remarked, appear to have generally taken 
the popular side. We can hardly be mistaken in sup- 
posing that, at the great crisis of the civil conflict, they 
employed themselves in versifying all the most powerful 
and virulent speeches of the Tribunes, and in heaping 
abuse on the leaders of the aristocracy. Every personal 
defect, every domestic scandal, every tradition dishonor- 
able to a noble house, would be sought out, brought into 
notice, and exaggerated. . . . During the Licinian 
conflict, Appius Claudius Crassus signalized himself by 
the ability and severity with which he harangued against 
the two great agitators. He would naturally, therefore, 
be the favorite mark of the Plebeian satirists ; nor would 



VIEGINIA 435 

they have been at a loss to find a point on which he was 
open to attack. 

His grandfather, called, like himself, Appius Claudius, 
had left a name as much detested as that of Sextus 
Tarquinius. He had been Consul more than seventy 
years before the introduction of the Licinian laws. By 
availing himself of a singular crisis in public feeling, 
he had obtained the consent of the Commons to the 
abolition of the Tribuneship, and had been chief of 
that Council of Ten to which the whole direction of the 
state had been committed. In a few months his adminis- 
tration had become universally odious. It was swept 
away by an irresistible outbreak of popular fury, and its 
memory was still held in abhorrence by the whole city. 
The immediate cause of the downfall of this execrable 
government was said to have been an attempt made by 
Appius Claudius to get possession of a beautiful young 
girl of humble birth. 

It can hardly be doubted that a story so admirably 
adapted to the purposes both of the poet and of the 
demagogue would be eagerly seized upon by minstrels 
burning with hatred against the Patrician order, against 
the Claudian house, and especially against the grandson 
and namesake of the infamous Decemvir. 

In order that the reader may judge fairly of these 
fragments of the lay of Virginia, he must imagine him- 
self a Plebeian who has just voted for the reelection of 
Sextius and Licinius. All the power of the Patricians 
has been exerted to throw out the two great champions 
of the Commons. Every Posthumius, iEmilius, and 
Cornelius has used his influence to the utmost. Debtors 
have been let out of the workhouses on condition of 
voting against the men of the people ; clients have been 
posted to hiss and interrupt the favorite candidates; 
Appius Claudius Crassus has spoken with more than his 
usual eloquence and asperity: all has been in vain; 
Licinius and Sextius have a fifth time carried all the 
tribes; work is suspended; the booths are closed; the 



436 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Plebeians bear on their shoulders the two champions of 
liberty through the Forum. Just at this moment it is 
announced that a popular poet, a zealous adherent of 
the Tribunes, has made a new song which will cut the 
Claudian nobles to the heart. The crowd gathers round 
him, and calls on him to recite it. He takes his stand 
on the spot where, according to tradition, Virginia, more 
than seventy years ago, was seized by the pander of 
Appius, and begins his story. 



VIRGINIA. 

FRAGMENTS OF A LAY SUNG IN THE FOKUM ON THE DAY 
WHEREON LUCIUS SEXTIUS SEXTINUS LATERANUS AND 
CAIUS LICINIUS CALVUS STOLO WERE ELECTED TRIBUNES 
OF THE COMMONS THE FIFTH TIME, IN THE YEAR OF 
THE CITY CCCLXXXII. 

Ye good men of the Commons, with loving hearts and 

true, 
Who stand by the bold Tribunes that still have stood 

by you, 
Come, make a circle round me, and mark my tale with 

care, 
A tale of what Eome once hath borne, of what Rome 

yet may bear. 
5 This is no Grecian fable, of fountains running wine, 
Of maids with snaky tresses, or sailors turned to swine. 
Here, in this very Forum, under the noonday sun, 
In sight of all the people, the bloody deed was done. 
Old men still creep among us who saw that fearful day, 
10 Just seventy years and seven ago, when the wicked Ten 

bare sway. 



VIEGINIA 437 

Of all the wicked Ten still the names are held accursed, 
And of all the wicked Ten Appius Claudius was the 

worst. 
He stalked along the Forum like King Tarquin in his 

pride; 
Twelve axes waited on him, six marching on a side ; 
15 The townsmen shrank to right and left, and eyed askance 

with fear 
His lowering brow, his curling mouth, which always 

seemed to sneer : 
That brow of hate, that mouth of scorn, marks all the 

kindred still; 
For never was there Claudius yet but wished the 

Commons ill; 
Nor lacks he fit attendance ; for close behind his heels, 
20 With outstretched chin and crouching pace, the client 

Marcus steals, 
His loins girt up to run with speed, be the errand what 

it may, 
And the smile flickering on his cheek, for aught his 

lord may say. 
Such varlets pimp and jest for hire among the lying 

Greeks : 
Such varlets still are paid to hoot when brave Licinius 

speaks. 
25 Where'er ye shed the honey, the buzzing flies will crowd ; 
Where'er ye fling the carrion, the raven's croak is loud; 
Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye 

see; 
And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client still 

will be. 



438 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Just then, as through one cloudless chink in a black 

stormy sky, 
so Shines out the dewy morning-star, a fair young girl 

came by. 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on 

her arm, 
Home she went bounding from the school, nor dreamed 

of shame or harm; 
And past those dreaded axes she innocently ran, 
With bright, frank brow that had not learned to blush 

at gaze of man; 
35 And up the Sacred Street she turned, and, as she danced 

along, 
She warbled gayly to herself lines of the good old song, 
How for a sport the princes came spurring from the 

camp, 
And found Lucrece, combing the fleece, under the mid- 
night lamp. 
The maiden sang as sings the lark, when up he darts his 

flight, 
40 From his nest in the green April corn, to meet the 

morning light; 
And Appius heard her sweet young voice, and saw her 

sweet young face, 
And loved her with the accursed love of his accursed 

race, 
And all along the Forum, and up the Sacred Street, 
His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing 

feet. 



VIKGINIA 439 

45 Over the Alban mountains the light of morning broke ; 
From all the roofs of the Seven Hills curled the thin 

wreaths of smoke. 
The city-gates were opened ; the Forum all alive, 
With buyers and with sellers was humming like a hive. 
Blithely on brass and timber the craft sman's stroke was 

ringing, 
53 And blithely o'er her panniers the market-girl was 

singing, 
And blithely young Virginia came smiling from her 

home: 
Ah ! woe for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Eome I 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on 

her arm, 
Forth she went bounding to the school, nor dreamed of 

shame or harm. 
55 She crossed the Forum shining with stalls in alleys gay, 
And just had reached the very spot whereon I stand this 

day, 
When up the varlet Marcus came; not such as when 

erewhile 
He crouched behind his patron's heels with the true 

client smile : 
He came with lowering forehead, swollen features, and 

clenched fist, 
60 And strode across Virginia's path, and caught her by 

the wrist. 
Hard strove the frighted maiden, and screamed with 

look aghast; 
And at her scream from right and left the folk came 

running fast ; 
The money-changer Crispus, with his thin silver hairs, 



440 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

And Hanno from the stately booth glittering with Punic 

wares, 
65 And the strong smith Mursena, grasping a half -forged 

brand, 
And Volero the fiesher, his cleaver in his hand. 
All came in wrath and wonder; for all knew that fair 

child ; 
And, as she passed them twice a day, all kissed their 

hands and smiled; 
And the strong smith Muraena gave Marcus such a blow, 
70 The caitiff reeled three paces back, and let the maiden go. 
Yet glared he fiercely round him, and growled in harsh, 

fell tone, 
"She's mine, and I will have her: I seek but for mine 

own: 
She is my slave, born in my house, and stolen away and 

sold, 
The year of the sore sickness, ere she was twelve hours 

old. 
73 'T was in the sad September, the month of wail and 

fright, 
Two augurs were borne forth that morn ; the Consul died 

ere night. 
I wait on Appius Claudius, I waited on his sire ; 
Let him who works the client wrong beware the patron's 

ire \» 

So spake the varlet Marcus; and dread and silence 
came 
80 On all the people at the sound of the great Claudian 
name. 



VIEGINIA 441 

For then there was no Tribune to speak the word of 

might, 
Which makes the rich man tremble, and guards the poor 

man's right. 
There was no brave Licinius, no honest Sextius then ; 
But all the city, in great fear, obeyed the wicked Ten. 
85 Yet ere the varlet Marcus again might seize the maid, 
Who clung tight to Mursena's skirt, and sobbed and 

shrieked for aid, 
Forth through the throng of gazers the young Icilius 

pressed, 
And stamped his foot, and rent his gown, and smote 

upon his breast, 
And sprang upon that column, by many a minstrel sung, 
90 Whereon three mouldering helmets, three rusting swords, 

are hung, 
And beckoned to the people, and in bold voice and clear 
Poured thick and fast the burning words that tyrants 

quake to hear. 

"Now, by your children's cradles, now by your fathers' 

graves, 
Be men to-day, Quirites, or be forever slaves ! 
95 For this did Servius give us laws ? For this did Lucrece 

bleed? 
For this was the great vengeance wrought on Tarquin's 

evil seed ? 
For this did those false sons make red the axes of their 

sire? 
For this did Scsevola's right hand hiss in the Tuscan fire ? 
Shall the vile fox-earth awe the race that stormed the 

lion's den? 



442 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

100 Shall we,, who . could not brook one lord, crouch to the 

wicked Ten ? 
Oh for that ancient spirit which curbed the Senate's 

will! 
Oh for the tents which in old time whitened the Sacred 

Hill! 
In those brave days our fathers stood firmly side by side; 
They faced the Marcian fury; they tamed the Fabian 

pride ; 
105 They drove the fiercest Quinctius an outcast forth from 

Home ; 
They sent the haughtiest Claudius with shivered fasces 

home. 
But what their care bequeathed us our madness flung 

away: 
All the ripe fruit of threescore years was blighted in a 

day. 
Exult, ye proud Patricians ! The hard-fought fight is o'er. 
HO We strove for honors — y t was in vain ; for freedom — 

't is no more. 
No crier to the polling summons the eager throng ; 
No Tribune breathes the word of might that guards the 

weak from wrong. 
Our very hearts, that were so high, sink down beneath 

your will. 
Eiches, and lands, and power, and state — ye have 

them : — keep them still. 
I'* Still keep the holy fillets ; still keep the purple gown, 
The axes, and the curule chair, the car, and laurel crown : 
Still press us for your cohorts, and, when the fight is 

done, 



VIEGINIA 443 

Still fill your garners from the soil which our good 

swords have won. 
Still, like a spreading ulcer, which leech-craft may not 

cure, 
120 Let your foul usance eat away the substance of the poor. 
Still let your haggard debtors bear all their fathers bore ; 
Still let your dens of torment be noisome as of yore ; 
No fire when Tiber freezes ; no air in dogstar heat ; 
And store of rods for free-born backs, and holes for free- 
born feet. 
125 Heap heavier still the fetters ; bar closer still the grate ; 
Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel hate. 
But, by the Shades beneath us, and by the gods above, 
Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel love ! 
Have ye not graceful ladies, whose spotless lineage 

springs 
130 From Consuls, and High Pontiffs, and ancient Alban 

kings ? 
Ladies, who deign not on our paths to set their tender 

feet, 
Who from their cars look down with scorn upon the 

wondering street, 
Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles 

behold, 
And breathe of Capuan odors, and shine with Spanish 

gold? 
135 Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to life — 
The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife, 
The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul 

endures, 
The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a yoke as 

yours. 



444 SHOBTEB ENGLISH POEMS 

Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast 

with pride ; 
140 Still let the bridegroom's arms infold an unpolluted 

bride. 
Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame, 
That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's 

blood to flame, 
Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our despair, 
And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the 

wretched dare." 



145 Straightway Yirginius led the maid a little space aside, 
To where the reeking shambles stood, piled up with horn 

and hide, 
Close to yon low dark archway, where, in a crimson flood, 
Leaps down to the great sewer the gurgling stream of 

blood. 
Hard by, a flesher on a block had laid his whittle down ; 
150 Virginius caught the whittle up, and hid it in his gown. 
And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat began 

to swell, . 
And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, "Farewell, sweet 

child ! Farewell ! 
Oh, how I loved my darling ! Though stern I some- 
times be, 
To thee, thou know'st, I was not so. Who could be so to 

thee? 
155 And how my darling loved me ! How glad she was to 

hear- 
My footstep on the threshold when I came back last year ! 



VIEGINIA 445 

And how she danced with pleasure to see my civic crown, 
And took my sword, and hung it up, and brought me 

forth my gown ! 
Now all those things are over, — yes, all thy pretty ways, 
160 Thy needlework-, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays ; 
And none will grieve when I go forth, or smile when I 

return, 
Or watch beside the old man's bed, or weep upon his urn. 
The house that was the happiest within the Eoman walls, 
The house that envied not the wealth of Capua's marble 

halls, 
165 Now, for the brightness of thy smile, must have eternal 

gloom, 
And for the music of thy voice, the silence of the tomb. 
The time is come. See how he points his eager hand 

this way ! 
She how his eyes gloat on thy grief, like a kite's upon 

the prey! 
With all his wit, he little deems that, spurned, betrayed, 

bereft, 
170 Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left. 
He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can 

save 
Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of 

the slave; 
Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and 

blow, — ■ 
Foul outrage which thou knowest not, which thou shalt 

never know. 
175 Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me 

one more kiss ; 



446 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but 

this." 
With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the 

side, 
And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob 

she died. 

Then, for a little moment, all people held their breath ; 
180 And through the crowded Forum was stillness as of 

death ; 
And in another moment brake forth from one and all 
A cry as if the Volscians were coming o'er the wall. 
Some with averted faces shrieking fled home amain ; 
Some ran to call a leech ; and some ran to lift the slain ; 
185 Some felt her lips and little wrist, if life might there be 

found ; 
And some tore up their garments fast, and strove to 

stanch the wound. 
In vain they ran, and felt, and stanched, for never truer 

blow 
That good right arm had dealt in fight against a 

Volscian foe. 

When Appius Claudius saw that deed, he shuddered 
and sank down, 
190 And hid his face some little space with the corner of his 
gown, 
Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Yirginius tot- 
tered nigh, 
And stood before the judgment-seat, and held the knife 

on high. 
"0 dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain, 



VIKGINIA 447 

By this dear blood I cry to you, do. right between us 

twain ; 
195 And even as Appius Claudius hath dealt by. me and mine, 
Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian line !" 
So spake the slayer of his child, and turned, and went 

his way ; 
But first he cast one haggard glance to where the body 

lay, 
And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan, and then, 

with steadfast feet, 
200 Strode right across the market-place unto the Sacred 

Street. 

Then up sprang Appius Claudius : "Stop him, alive or 

dead ! 
Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings 

his head !" 
He looked upon his clients ; but none would work his will. 
He looked upon his lictors ; but they trembled and stood 

still. 
205 And, as Yirginius through the press his way in silence 

cleft, 
Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left. 
And he hath passed in safety unto his woful home, 
And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are 

done in Eome. 

By this the flood of people was swollen from every side, 
210 And streets and porches round were filled with that over- 
flowing tide ; 
And close around the body gathered a little train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain. 



448 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress 

crown, 
And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down. 
215 The face of Appius Claudius wore the Claudian scowl 

and sneer, 
And in the Claudian note he cried, "What doth this 

rabble here ? 
Have they no crafts to mind at home, that hitherward 

they stray ? 
Ho ! lictors, clear the market-place, and fetch the corpse 

away !" 
The voice of grief and fury till then had not been loud ; 
220 But a deep sullen murmur wandered among the crowd, 
Like the moaning noise that goes before the whirlwind 

on the deep, 
Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but half aroused from 

sleep. 
But when the lictors at that word, tall yeomen all and 

strong, 
Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went down into the 

throng, 
225 Those old men say, who saw that day of sorrow and of 

sin, 
That in the Eoman Forum was never such a din. 
The wailing, hooting, cursing, the howls of grief and 

hate, 
Were heard beyond the Pincian Hill, beyond the Latin 

Gate. 
But close around the body, where stood the little train 
230 Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain, 
No cries were there, but teeth set fast, low whispers and 

black frowns, 



VIEGINIA 449 

And breaking up of benches, and girding up of gowns ; 
'T was well the lictors might not pierce to where the 

maiden lay, 
Else surety had they been all twelve torn limb from limb 

that day. 
235 Eight glad they were to struggle back, blood streaming 

from their heads, 
With axes all in splinters, and raiment all in shreds. 
Then Appius Claudius gnawed his lip and the blood left 

his cheek ; 
And thrice he beckoned with his hand, and thrice he 

strove to speak ; 
And thrice the tossing Forum set up a frightful yell : 
240 "See, see, thou dog ! what thou hast done ; and hide thy 

shame in hell ! 
Thou that wouldst make our maidens slaves must first 

make slaves of men. 
Tribunes ! Hurrah for Tribunes ! Down with the wicked 

Ten !" 
And straightway, thick as hailstones, came whizzing 

through the air 
Pebbles, and bricks, and potsherds, all round the curule 

chair ; 
245 And upon Appius Claudius great fear and trembling 

came; 
For never was a Claudius yet brave against aught but 

shame. 
Though the great houses love us not, we own, to do them 

right, 
That the great houses, all save one, have borne them well 

in fight. 
Still Caius of Corioli, his triumphs and his wrongs, 



450 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

250 His vengeance and his mercy, live in our camp-fire songs. 
Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have Gaul and Tuscan 

bowed ; 
And Home may bear the pride of him of whom herself is 

proud. 
But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stricken field, 
And changes color like a maid at sight of sword and 

shield. 
255 The Claudian triumphs all were won within the city 

towers ; 
The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any necks but 

ours. 
A Cossus, like a wild-cat, springs ever at the face; 
A Fabius rushes like a boar against the shouting chase; 
But the vile Claudian litter, raging with currish spite, 
260 Still yelps and snaps at those who run, still runs from 

those who smite. 
So now 't was seen of Appius. "When stones began to fly, 
He shook, and crouched, and wrung his hands, and smote 

upon his thigh. 
"Kind clients, honest lictors, stand by me in this fray ! 
Must I be torn in pieces? Home, home, the nearest 

way !" 
265 While yet he spake, and looked around with a bewildered 

stare, 
Four sturdy lictors put their necks beneath the curule 

chair ; 
And fourscore clients on the left, and fourscore on the 

right, 
Arrayed themselves with swords and staves, and loins 

girt up for fight. 



VIRGINIA 451 

But, though without or staff or sword, so furious was the 

throng, 
270 That scarce the train with might and main could bring 

their lord along. 
Twelve times the crowd made at him; five times they 

seized his gown ; 
Small chance was his to rise again, if once they got him 

down. 
And sharper came the pelting ; and evermore the yell — 
"Tribunes ! we will have Tribunes !" rose with a louder 

swell. 
275 And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered sail 
When raves the Adriatic beneath an eastern gale, 
When the Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of 

spume, 
And the great Thunder Cape has donned his veil of inky 

gloom. 
One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath 

the ear ; 
280 And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned with 

pain and fear. 
His cursed head, that he was wont to hold so high with 

pride, 
Now, like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed 

from side to side; 
And when his stout retainers had brought him to his 

door, 
His face and neck were all one cake of filth and clotted 

gore. 
285 As Appius Claudius was that day, so may his grand- 
son be! 



452 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

God send Rome one such other sight, and send me there 

to see ! 



THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS. 

It can hardly be necessary to remind any reader that, 
according to the popular tradition, Eomulus, after he 
has slain his grand-uncle, Amulius, and restored his 
grandfather Numitor, determined to quit Alba, the 
hereditary domain of the Sylvian princes, and to found 
a new city. The gods, it was added, vouchsafed the 
clearest signs of the favor with which they regarded 
the enterprise, and of the high destinies reserved for the 
young colony. 

This event was likely to be a favorite theme of the 
old Latin minstrels. They would naturally attribute the 
project of Eomulus to some divine intimation of the 
power and prosperity which it was decreed that his city 
should attain. They would probably introduce seers 
foretelling the victories of unborn consuls and dictators, 
and the last great victory would generally occupy the 
most conspicuous place in the prediction. There is 
nothing strange in the supposition that the poet who 
was employed to celebrate the first great triumph of 
the Eomans over the Greeks might throw his song of 
exultation into this form. 

The occasion was one likely to excite the strongest 
feelings of national pride. A great outrage had been 
followed by a great retribution. Seven years before this 
time, Lucius Posthumius Megellus, who sprang from 
one of the noblest houses of Eome, and had been thrice 
Consul, was sent ambassador to Tarentum, with charge 
to demand reparation for grievous injuries. The Taren- 
tines gave him audience in their theatre, where he ad- 
dressed them in such Greek as he could command, which, 
we may well believe, was not exactly such as Cineas 
would have spoken. An exquisite sense of the ridiculous 



THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS 453 

belonged to the Greek character; and closely connected 
with this faculty was a strong propensity to flippancy 
and impertinence. When Posthumius placed an accent 
wrong, his hearers burst into a laugh. When he remon- 
strated, they hooted him, and called him a barbarian; 
and at length hissed him off the stage as if he had been 
a bad actor. As the grave Eoman retired, a buffoon, 
who, from his constant drunkenness, was nicknamed the 
Pint Pot, came up with gestures of the grossest inde- 
cency, and bespattered the senatorial gown with filth. 
Posthumius turned round to the multitude, and held 
up th.3 gown, as if appealing to the universal law of 
nations. The sight only increased the insolence of the 
Tarentines. They clapped their hands, and set up a 
shout of laughter which shook the theatre. "Men of 
Tarentum," said Posthumius, "it will take not a little 
blood to wash this gown." 

Eome, in consequence of this insult, declared war 
against the Tarentines. The Tarentines sought for allies 
beyond the Ionian Sea. Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, came 
to their help with a large army ; and, for the first time, 
the two great nations of antiquity were fairly matched 
against each other. 

The fame of Greece in arms, as well as in arts, was 
then at the height. Half a century earlier, the career of 
Alexander had excited the admiration and terror of all 
nations from the Ganges to the Pillars of Hercules. 
Eoyal houses, founded by Macedonian captains, still 
reigned at Antioch and Alexandria. That barbarian 
warriors, led by barbarian chiefs, should win a pitched 
battle against Greek valor guided by Greek science, 
seemed as incredible as it would now seem that the 
Burmese or the Siamese should, in the open plain, put 
to flight an equal number of the best English troops. 
Of the Greek generals then living, Pyrrhus 
was indisputably the first. Among the troops who were 
trained in the Greek discipline, his Epirotes ranked high. 
His expedition to Italy was a turning-point in the his- 



454 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

tory of the world. He found there a people who, far 
inferior to the Athenians and Corinthians in the fine 
arts, in the speculative sciences, and in all the refine- 
ments of life, were the best soldiers on the face of the 
earth. Their arms, their gradations of rank, their order 
of battle, their method of intrenchment, were all of 
Latian origin, and had all been gradually brought near 
to perfection, not by the study of foreign models, but by 
the genius and experience of many generations of great 
native commanders. The first words which broke from 
the king, when his practised eye had surveyed the Eoman 
encampment, were full of meaning : "These barbarians," 
he said, "have nothing barbarous in their military 
arrangements." He was at first victorious; for his own 
talents were superior to those of the captains who were 
opposed to him; and the Eomans were not prepared for 
the onset of the elephants of the East, which were then 
for the first time seen in Italy, — moving mountains, 
with long snakes for hands. But the victories of the 
Epirotes were fiercely disputed, dearly purchased, and 
altogether unprofitable. At length, Manius Curius Den- 
tatus, who had in his first consulship won two triumphs, 
was again placed at the head of the Eoman Common- 
wealth, and sent to encounter the invaders. A great bat- 
tle was fought near Beneventum. Pyrrhus was com- 
pletely defeated. He repassed the sea; and the world 
learned with amazement that a people had been dis- 
covered who, in fair fighting, were superior to the best 
troops that had been drilled on the system of Parmenio 
and Antigonus. 

It is said by Floras, and may easily be believed, that 
the triumph far surpassed in magnificence any that 
Eome had previously seen. The only spoils which 
Papirius Cursor and Fabius Maximus could exhibit 
were flocks and herds, wagons of rude structure, and 
heaps of spears and helmets. But now, for the first 
time, the riches of Asia and the arts of Greece adorned 



THE PBOPHECY OF CAPYS 455 

a Soman pageant. Plate, fine stuffs, costly furniture, 
rare animals, exquisite paintings and sculptures, formed 
part of the procession. At the banquet would be assem- 
bled a crowd of warriors and statesmen. 

On such a day we may suppose that the patriotic 
enthusiasm of a Latin poet would vent itself in reiterated 
shouts of "Io Triumphe," such as were uttered by Horace 
on a far less exciting occasion, and in boasts resembling 
those which Virgil, two hundred and fifty years later, 
put into the mouth of Anchises. The superiority of 
some foreign nations, and especially of the Greeks, in 
the lazy arts of peace, would be admitted with disdainful 
candor; but preeminence in all the qualities which fit a 
people to subdue and govern mankind would be claimed 
for the Eomans. 

The following lay belongs to the latest age of Latin 
ball ad-poetry. Nasvius and Livius Andronicus were 
probably among the children whose mothers held them 
up to see the chariot of Curius go by. The minstrel 
who sang on that day might possibly have lived to read 
the first hexameters of Ennius, and to see the first 
comedies of Plautus. His poem, as might be expected, 
shows a much wider acquaintance with the geography, 
manners, and productions of remote nations than would 
have been found in compositions of the age of Camillus. 
But he troubles himself little about dates ; and having 
heard travelers talk with admiration of the Colossus of 
Ehodes, and of the structures and gardens with which 
the Macedonian kings of Syria had embellished their 
residence on the banks of the Orontes, he has never 
thought of inquiring whether these things existed in the 
age of Eomulus. 



456 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS. 

A LAY SUNG AT THE BANQUET IN THE CAPITOL, ON 
THE DAY WHEREON MANIUS OURIUS DENTATUS, A 
SECOND TIME CONSUL, TRIUMPHED OVER KING 
PYRRHUS AND THE TARENTINES, IN THE YEAR OP 
THE CITY CCCCLXXIX. 

1 

Now slain is King Amulius, 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

On the throne of Aventine. 
5 Slain is the Pontiff Gamers, 

Who spake the words of doom: 
"The children to the Tiber; 

The mother to the tomb." 

2 
In Albans lake no fisher 
o His net to-day is flinging; 

On the dark rind of Alba's oaks 

To-day no axe is ringing; 
The yoke hangs o'er the manger; 
The scythe lies in the hay; 
5 Through all the Alban villages 

No work is done to-day. 

3 

And every Alban burgher 

Hath donned his whitest gown; 
And every head in Alba 
o Weareth a poplar crown; 



THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS 457 

And every Alban doorpost 

With boughs and flowers is gay; 
For to-day the dead are living; 

The lost are found to-day. 



They were doomed by a bloody king; 

They were doomed by a lying priest ; 
They were cast on the raging flood; 

They were tracked by the raging beast. 
Eaging beast and raging flood 

Alike have spared the prey; 
And to-day the dead are living; 

The lost are found to-day. 



The troubled river knew them, 

And smoothed his yellow foam, 
And gently rocked the cradle 

That bore the fate of Eome. 
The ravening she-wolf knew them, 

And licked them o'er and o'er, 
And gave them of her own fierce milk, 

Eich with raw flesh and gore. 
Twenty winters, twenty springs, 

Since then have rolled away; 
And to-day the dead are living, 

The lost are found to-day. 



Blithe it was to see the twins, 
Eight goodly youths and tall, 



458 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Marching from Alba Longa 
To their old grandsire's hall. 

Along their path fresh garlands 
i Are hung from tree to tree; 

Before them stride the pipers, 
Piping a note of glee. 



On the right goes Komulus, 

With arms to the elbows red, 
And in his hand a broadsword, 

And on the blade a head, - — 
A head in an iron helmet, 

With horse-hair hanging down P 
A shaggy head, a swarthy head, 

Fixed in a ghastly frown, — 
The head of King Amnlius 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

On the throne of Aventine. 



On the left side goes Kemus, 

With wrists and fingers red, 
And in his hand a boar-spear, 

And on the point a head, — 
A wrinkled head and aged, 

With silver beard and hair, 
And holy fillets round it, 

Such as the pontiffs wear, — 
The head of ancient Camers, 

Who spake the words of doom: 



THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS 459 

"The children to the Tiber; 
The mother to the tomb." 



Two and two behind the twins 

Their trusty comrades go, 
Four-and-forty valiant men, 

With club, and axe, and bow. 
On each side every hamlet 

Pours forth its joyous crowd, 
Shouting lads and baying dogs 

And children laughing loud, 
And old men weeping fondly 

As Rhea's boys go by, 
And maids who shriek to see the heads, 

Yet, shrieking, press more nigh. 

10 

So they marched along the lake; 

They marched by fold and stall, 
By cornfield and by vineyard, 

Unto the old man's hall. 

11 

In the hall-gate sate Capys, 

Capys, the sightless seer; 
From head to foot he trembled 

As Eomulus drew near. 
And up stood stiff his thin white hair, 

And his blind eyes flashed fire: 
"Hail ! foster-child of the wondrous nurse ! 

Hail ! son of the wondrous sire ! 



460 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

12 

"But thou, — what dost thou here 

In the old man's peaceful hall? 
What doth the eagle in the coop, 

The bison in the stall? 
105 Our corn fills many a garner; 

Our vines clasp many a tree; 
Our flocks are white on many a hill; 

But these are not for thee. 

13 

"For thee no treasure ripens 
no In the Tartessian mine: 

For thee no ship brings precious bales 

Across the Libyan brine; 
Thou shalt not drink from amber; 
Thou shalt not rest on down; 
115 Arabia shall not steep thy locks, 

Nor Sidon tinge thy gown. 

14 
"Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, 

Eich table and soft bed, 
To them who of man's seed are born, 
120 Whom woman's milk have fed. 

Thou wast not made for lucre, 

For pleasure, nor for rest; 
Thou, that art sprung from the War-god's loins, 
And hast tugged at the she-wolf's breast. 

15 
125 "From sunrise unto sunset 

All earth shall hear thy fame ; 



THE PEOPHECY OF- CAPYS 461 

A glorious city thou shalt build, 

And name it by thy name. 
And there, unquenched through ages, 

Like Vesta's sacred fire, 
Shall live the spirit of thy nurse, 

The spirit of thy sire. 

16 

"The ox toils through the furrow, 

Obedient to the goad; 
The patient ass, up flinty paths, 

Plods with his weary load ; 
With whine and bound the spaniel 

His master's whistle hears; 
And the sheep yields her patiently 

To the loud clashing shears. 

17 

"But thy nurse will hear no master; 

Thy nurse will bear no load; 
And woe to them that shear her, 

And woe to them that goad! 
When all the pack, loud baying, 

Her bloody lair surrounds, 
She dies in silence, biting hard, 

Amidst the dying hounds. 

18 

"Pomona loves the orchard; 

And Liber loves the vine ; 
And Pales loves the straw-built shed 

Warm with the breath of kine; 



462 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And Venus loves the whispers 
Of plighted youth and maid, 
155 In April's ivory moonlight 

Beneath the chestnut shade. 

19 

"But thy father loves the clashing 

Of broadsword and of shield; 
He loves to drink the steam that reeks 
160 From the fresh battle-field. 

He smiles a smile more dreadful 

Than his own dreadful frown, 
When he sees the thick black cloud of smoke 

Go up from the conquered town. 

20 

165 "And such as is the War-god, 

The author of thy line, 
And such as she who suckled thee, 

Even such be thou and thine. 
Leave to the soft Campanian 
no His baths and his perfumes; 

Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 
Their dyeing- vats and looms: 
Leave to the sons of Carthage 
The rudder and the oar : 
175 Leave to the Greek his marble Nymphs 

And scrolls of wordy lore. 

21 

"Thine, Eoman, is the pilum; 
Eoman, the sword is thine, 



THE PBOPHECY OF CAPYS 463 

The even trench, the bristling mound, 

The legion's ordered line; 
And thine the wheels of triumph, 

Which with their laurelled train 
Move slowly up the shouting streets 

To Jove's eternal fame. 

22 

"Beneath thy yoke the Volscian 

Shall veil his lofty brow; 
Soft Capua's curled revellers 

Before thy chairs shall bow; 
The Lucumoes of Arnus 

Shall quake thy rods to see; 
And the proud Samnite's heart of steel 

Shall yield to only thee. 

23 

"The Gaul shall come against thee 
From the land of snow and night; 

Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies 
To the raven and the kite. 

24 

"The Greek shall come against thee, 

The conqueror of the East. 
Beside him stalks to battle 

The huge earth-shaking beast, 
The beast on whom the castle 

With all its guards doth stand, 
The beast who hath between his eyes 

The serpent for a hand. 






464 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

)5 First march the bold Epirotes, 

Wedged close with shield and spear; 
And the ranks of false Tarentum 
Are glittering in the rear. 

25 

"The ranks of false Tarentum 
LO Like hunted sheep shall fly; 

In vain the bold Epirotes 

Shall round their standards die. 
And Apennines gray vultures 
Shall have a noble feast 
5 On the fat and the eyes 

Of the huge earth-shaking beast. 

26 

"Hurrah! for the good weapons 
That keep the War-god's land. 

Hurrah ! for Eome's stout pilum 
o In a stout Eoman hand. 

Hurrah ! for Eome's short broadsword^ 
That through the thick array 

Of levelled spears and serried shields 
Hews deep its gory way. 

27 

s "Hurrah ! for the great triumph 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the wan captives 

That pass in endless file. 
Ho! bold Epirotes, whither 
io Hath the Eed King ta'en flight? 



HI 



THE PBOPHECY OF CAPYS 465 

Ho ! dogs of false Tarentum, 
Is not the gown washed white? 

28 

"Hurrah ! for the great triumph 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the rich dye of Tyre, 

And the fine web of Nile, 
The helmets gay with plumage 

Torn from the pheasant's wings, 
The belts set thick with starry gems 

That shone on Indian kings, 
The urns of massy silver, 

The goblets rough with gold, 
The many-colored tablets bright 

With loves and wars of old, 
The stone that breathes and struggles, 

The brass that seems to speak, — 
Such cunning they who dwell on high 

Have given unto the Greek. 

29 

"Hurrah ! for Manius Curius, 

The bravest son of Eome, 
Thrice in utmost need sent forth, 

Thrice drawn in triumph home. 
Weave, weave for Manius Curius 

The third embroidered gown: 
Make ready the third lofty car, 

And twine the third green crown; 
And yoke the steeds of Eosea 

With necks like a bended bow, 






466 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And deck the bull, Mevania's bull, 
268 The bull as white as snow. 

30 

"Blest and thrice blest the Roman 

Who sees Rome's brightest day, 
Who sees that long victorious pomp 

Wind down the Sacred Way, 
265 And through the bellowing Forum 

And round the Suppliant's Grove, 
Up to the everlasting gates 

Of Capitolian Jove. 

31 

"Then where, o'er two bright havens, 
270 The towers of Corinth frown ; 

Where the gigantic King of Day 

On his own Rhodes looks down ; 

Where soft Orontes murmurs 

Beneath the laurel shades; 

275 Where Nile reflects the endless length 

Of dark-red colonnades; 

Where in the still deep water, 

Sheltered from waves and blasts, 
Bristle the dusky forests 
280 Of Byrsa's thousand masts ; 

Where fur-clad hunters wander 

Amidst the northern ice; 
Where through the sand of morning-land 
The camel bears the spice ; 
285 Where Atlas flings his shadow 

Far o'er the western foam, — 



IVEY 



467 



Shall be great fear on all who hear 
The mighty name of Rome. ' ' 



IVRY. 

A SONG OF THE HUGUENOTS. 

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories 

are! 
And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of 

Navarre ! 
Now let there be the merry sound of music and of 

dance, 
Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, oh 

pleasant land of France ! 
6 And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of 

the waters, 
Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning 

daughters. 
As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy, 
For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy 

walls annoy. 
Hurrah! Hurrah! a single field hath turned the 

chance of war, 
10 Hurrah ! Hurrah ! for Ivry, and H^nry of Navarre. 

Oh ! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn 

of day, 
We saw the army of the League drawn out in long 

array; 
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, 



468 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flem- 
ish spears. 
15 There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of 
our land ; 
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in 

his hand : 
And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine 's 

" empurpled flood, 
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his 

blood ; 
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate 
of war, 
20 To fight for his own holy name, and Henry of Navarre. 

The King is come to marshal us, in all his armor 

drest, 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gal- 
lant crest. 
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern 

and high. 
25 Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing 

to wing, 
Down all our line, a deafening shout, "God save our 

Lord the King." 
"An if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he 

may, 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, 
Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the 

ranks of war, 
30 And be your oriflamme today the helmet of Navarre. 7 ' 



IVEY 469 

Hurrah ! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled 

din, 
Of fife, and steed, and trnmp, and drum, and roaring 

culverin. 
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's 

plain, 
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and 

Almayne. 
35 Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of 

France, 
Charge for the golden lilies, — upon them with the 

lance. 
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears 

in rest, 
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the 

snow-white crest; 
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a 

guiding star, 
40 Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of 

Navarre. 

Now, God be praised, the day is ours. Mayenne hath 

turned his rein. 
D 'Aumale hath cried for quarter. The Flemish count 

is slain, 
Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before 'a 

Biscay gale; 
The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, 

and cloven mail. 
45 And then we thought on vengeance, and, all along our 

van, 



470 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

• ' Remember Saint Bartholomew," was passed from 

man to man. 
But out spake gentle Henry, "No Frenchman is my 

foe: 
Down, down, with every foreigner, but let your 

brethren go." 
Oh! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or 

in war, 
60 As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, the soldier of 

Navarre ? 

Right well fought all the Frenchmen who fought for 

France today ; 
And many a lordly banner God gave them for a prey. 
But we of the religion have borne us best in fight ; 
And the good Lord of Rosny hath ta'en the cornet 

white. 
55 Our own true Maximilian the cornet white hath ta'en, 
The cornet white with crosses black, the flag of false 

Lorraine. 
Up with it high ; unfurl it wide ; that all the host may 

know 
How God hath humbled the proud house which 

wrought his church such woe. 
Then on the ground, while trumpets sound their loud- 
est point of war, 
60 Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet for Henry of 

Navarre. 

Ho ! maidens of Vienna ; Ho ! matrons of Lucerne ; 
Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never 
shall return. 



THE AEMADA 471 

Ho ! Philip, send, for charity, thy Mexican pistoles, 
That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor 

spearmen's souls. 
65 Ho ! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms 

be bright; 
Ho! burghers of Saint Genevieve, keep watch and 

ward tonight. 
For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath 

raised the slave, 
And mocked the counsel of the wise, and the valor 

of the brave. 
Then glory to his hoi}/ name, from whom all glories 

are; 
70 And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of 

Navarre. 



THE ARMADA. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's 

praise ; 
I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in 

ancient days, 
When that great fleet invincible against her bore in 

vain 
The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of 

Spain. 

5 It was about the lovely close of a warm summer day, 
There came a gallant merchant-ship full, sail to Plym- 
outh Bay; 



472 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Her crew hath seen Castile's black fleet, beyond 

Aurigny's isle, 
At earliest twilight, on the waves lie heaving many 

a mile. 
At sunrise she escaped their van, by God's especial 

grace ; 
10 And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close 

in chase. 
Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the 

wall; 
The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecombe 's lofty 

hall; 
Many a light fishing-bark put out to pry along the 

coast, 
And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland 

many a post. 
15 "With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old sheriff 

comes ; 
Behind him march the halberdiers; before him sound 

the drums; 
His yeomen round the market cross make clear an 

ample space ; 
For there behooves him to set up the standard of Her 

Grace. 
And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily dance the 

bells, 
20 As slow upon the laboring wind the royal blazon 

swells. 
Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his ancient 

crown, 
And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay lilies 

down. 



lie 



THE AEMADA 473 

So stalked lie when he turned to flight, on that famed 

Picard field, 
Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, and Caesar's eagle 

shield, 
s So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he turned 

to bay, 
And crushed and torn beneath his claws the princely 

hunters lay. 
Ho ! strike the flagstaff deep, sir Knight : ho ! scatter 

flowers, fair maids: 
Ho ! gunners, fire a loud salute : ho ! gallants, draw 

your blades : 
Thou sun, shine on her joyously ; ye breezes, waft her 

wide; 

so Our glorious semper eadem, the banner of our pride. 
The freshening breeze of eve unfurled that banner's 

massy fold; 
The parting gleam of sunshine kissed that haughty 

scroll of gold; 
Night sang upon the dusky beach, and on the purple 

sea. 
Such night in England ne 'er had been, nor e 'er again 

shall be. 
36 From Eddy stone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to 

Milf ord Bay, 
That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the 

day; 
For swift to east and swift to west the ghastly war- 
flame spread, 
High on Saint Michael 's Mount it shone : it shone on 

Beachy Head. 
Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern 

shire, 



474 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

40 Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling 

points of fire. 
The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering 

waves : 
The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's 

sunless caves: 
O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the 

fiery herald flew: 
He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers 

of Beaulieu. 
45 Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out 

from Bristol town, 
And ere the day three hundred horse had met on 

Clifton down; 
The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the 

night, 
And saw o'erhanging Richmond Hill the streak of 

blood-red light. 
Then bugle's note and cannon's roar the deathlike 

silence broke, 
50 And with one start, and with one cry, the royal city 

woke. 
At once on all her stately gates arose the answering 

fires; 
At once the wild alarum clashed from all her reeling 

spires ; 
From all the batteries of the Tower pealed loud the 

voice of fear; 
And all the thousand masts of Thames sent back a 

louder cheer: 
55 And from the furthest wards was heard the rush of 

hurrying feet, 



THE AEMADA 475 

And the broad streams of pikes and flags rushed down 

each roaring street; 
And broader still became the blaze, and louder still 

the din, 
As fast from every village round the horse came 

spurring in : 
And eastward straight from wild Blackheath the 

warlike errand went, 
o And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant squires 

of Kent. 
Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills flew those 

bright couriers forth; 
High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy moor they started 

for the north ; 
And on, and on, without a pause, untired they 

bounded still: 
All night from tower to tower they sprang; they 

sprang from hill to hill : 
s Till the proud peak unfurled the flag o'er Darwin's 

rocky dales, 
Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of 

"Wales, 
Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern's 

lonely height, 
Till streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin's 

crest of light, 
Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely 's 

stately fane, 
ro And tower and hamlet rose in arms o'er all the 

boundless plain; 
Till Bel voir 's lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent, 
And Lincoln sped the message on o'er the wide vale 

of Trent; 



476 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt 's 

embattled pile, 
And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers 

of Carlisle. 



THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. 

BY OBADIAH BIND-THEIR-KINGS-IN-CHAINS-AND-THEIR- 
NOBLES-WITH-LINKS-OF-IRON, SERJEANT IN IRETON 'S 
REGIMENT. 

Oh! wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the 
North, 
With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment 
all red? 
And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous 
shout? 
And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which 
ye tread? 

5 Oh evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit, 

And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we 
trod; 
For we trampled on the throng of the haughty and 
the strong, 
Who sate in the high places, and slew the saints 
of God. 

It was about the noon of a glorious day of June, 
10 That we saw their banners dance, and their 
cuirasses shine, 



THE BATTLE OF NASEBY 477 

And the Man of Blood was there, with his long 
essenced hair, 
And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of 
the Rhine. 

Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his 
sword, 
The General rode along us to form us to the fight, 
When a murmuring sound broke out, and swell 'd into 
a shout, 
Among the godless horsemen upon the tyrant's 
right. 

And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore, 

The cry of battle rises along their charging line! 

For God ! for the Cause ! for the Church ! for the 

Laws! 

For Charles King of England and Rupert of the 

Rhine ! 

The furious German comes, with his clarions and his 
drums, 
His bravoes of Alsatia, and pages of "Whitehall ; 
They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes, 
close your ranks; • 
For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall. 

They are here ! They rush on ! We are broken ! We 

are gone ! 
Our left is borne before them like stubble on the 

blast. 
Lord, put forth thy might! Lord, defend the 

right! 



478 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it t 
the last. 

Stout Skippon hath a wound; the centre hath give 
ground : 

30 Hark ! hark ! — What means the trampling of horst 

men on our rear? 

Whose banner do I see, boys? 'Tis he, thank Goc 

'tis he, boys, 

Bear up another minute : brave Oliver is here. 

Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a rovv 

Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on th 

dykes, 

35 Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of th 
Accurst, 

And at a shock have scattered the forest of hi 
pikes. 

Fast, fast, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hid 

Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Tempi 

Bar; 

And he — he turns, he flies : — shame on those cruel eye 
40 That bore to look on torture, and dare not look o: 
war. 

Ho! comrades scour the plain; and, ere ye strip th 
slain, 

First give another stab to make your search secure 
Then shake from sleeves and pockets their broad 
pieces and lockets, 
The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of the pool 



In 



Fi 



ii 



THE BATTLE OF NASEBY 479 

Fools ! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts 
were gay and bold, 
I When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans 
today ; 
And tomorrow shall the fox, from her chambers in 
the rocks, 
Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey. 

Where be your tongues that late mocked at heaven 
and hell and fate, 
And the fingers that once were so busy with your 
blades, 
Your perfum'd satin clothes, your catches and your 
oaths, 
Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds 
and your spades? 

Down, down, for ever down with the mitre and the 
crown, 
With the Belial of the Court and the Mammon of 
the Pope; 
There is woe in Oxford halls: there is wail in Dur- 
ham's Stalls: 
The Jesuit smites his bosom: the Bishop rends his 
cope. 

And She of the seven hills shall mourn her children's 
ills, 
And tremble when she thinks on the edge of Eng- 
land's sword; 
r lAnd the Kings of earth in fear shall shudder when 
they hear 



480 SHOKTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

What the hand of God hath wrought for the 
Houses and the Word. 



LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

NOTES. 

LOCALITIES: 

In the sixth century B. C, the Etrurians occupied Northern 
Italy, and extended on the west, with the Tiber for their general 
boundary, almost to the gates of Rome. On the eastern or Adriatic 
side, came the people of Latin blood, speaking the dialects of Cen- 
tral Italy : the Latini, the Umbri, the Sabini, the Volsci, etc. South 
of the Tiber, these people covered the peninsula. There were 
Pelagian and Greek colonies in the South, and small Phoenician 
colonies in Sardinia and Sicily. 

One of the most effective things in the Lays is the sonorous use 
of proper names. These serve two purposes ; first, their mere sound 
is so skillfully interwoven that it adds resonance and helps the 
swing of the measure ; second, they add to the vividness of the 
scene by a rich and romantic suggestion of local color. To the 
reader with intimate knowledge of Italy, these names have in them- 
selves a rare charm of association. But the younger reader does 
not gain much by stopping in his reading to learn that a little town 
is in Northern Latium or Southern Etruria. The editor has there- 
fore simply gathered the names together in the Geographical Index 
that follows, which can be consulted at will and has referred to this 
Index from time to time in the Notes. Additional study of a classical 
Atlas is recommended to students curious concerning geography. 

Most of the places in Horatius lie to the North of Rome, in 
Etruria, whence the troops march on the city. In The Battle of the 
Lake Regillus, the troops march from Latium, the province to the 
South ; but the coming of the Great White Brethren is accom- 
panied by many Greek names. Virginia has no geographical allu- 
sions. In The Prophecy of Capys, the scene is laid near Alba 
Longa, the mother-city of Rome ; but other localities are mentioned 
in the prophecy of the extending triumphs of the city. 

GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 
LOCALITIES IN ETRURIA ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED: 

Arnus: A river in Northern Alvernus: A mountain on the 
Etruria : the modern Arno. border of Umbria. Later 

on which Florence is situated. known as Mt. Alverna ; on 



NOTES ON MACAULAY'S POEMS 



481 



this mountain St. Francis was 
stigmatized. 

Auser: A muddy little river. 

Arretium: A town : modern 
Arezzo. 

Ciminian: Mount Ciminus. 

Clanis: A river. 

Clitumnus: A river with beau- 
tiful clear springs still vis- 
ited. See Childe Harold, Can- 
to IV, 1. 586. 

Clausium: A town; modern 
Chiusi. 

Cortona: A town, in a lofty 
situation, which still keeps the 
same name. 

Cosa: A town on the sea-coast. 

Falerii: A town. 

Ferentinum: A town. 

Luna: A town in the very North 

LOCALITIES 
Alba Longa: The town among 

the hills to the South of Rome 

from which, according to 

legend, the city was settled. 
Algidus: A mountain. 
Anio: A river flowing into the 

Tiber. 
Anxur: A town. 
Ardea: A town. 
Arpinum: A town. 
Aricia: A town among the hills. 

See note to CMlde Harold, 

Canto IV, 1. 1549. 
Camerium: A town. 
Cora: A town. 
Crustumerium : A town. 
Fidenae: A town ; modern Castel 

Guibileo, on the Tiber. 
Oabei: A town. 
Janiculum: One of the Seven 

Hills of Rome. 
Laureniian: An adjective from 

Laurentum, a town on the 

sea-coast. 
Lavinium: On the coast; see the 

Acneid. 



of Etruria, between Pisa and 

Genoa. 
Nar: A river that flows into the 

Tiber. 
Pisae: Modern Pisa. 
Populonia: A town on a little 

peninsula. 
Soracte: A mountain ; see CMlde 

Harold, Canto IV, 1. 665. 
Butrium: A town. 
Tifernum: A town on the North- 
ern Tiber. 
Thrasymene: A lake. See Childe 

Harold, Canto IV, 1. 551. 
TJmbro: A little river flowing 

into the Mediterranean. 
Volaterrae: Modern Volterra. 
Volsinian mere: A lake. 
Volsinium: A town. 

IN LATIUM: 

N omentum: A town. 

Norba: A town. 

Ostia: The sea-port of Rome, 
still bearing the same naitfe. 

Palatinus: One of the Seven 
Hills of Rome, on which later 
the Palace of the Caesars was 
built. See Childe Harold, 
Canto IV, 1. 951. 

Pedum: A town. 

Pomptine fog: The miasma from 
the Pontine Marshes, which 
extended over the lowlands of 
Latium. 

Regillus: The small lake by 
which the battle was fought 
between the Romans and the 
Latins. 

Setia: A town. 

Tibur: An important town ; mod- 
ern Tivoli. 

Tusculum: A town very near 
Rome. 

Ufens: A river. 

Velitrae: A town. 



482 



SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 



The Velian Hill: Another of the 

Seven Hills of Rome. 
Witch's Fortress: A promontory, 



named from Circe the Sor- 
ceress. 



OTHER LOCALITIES: 



Adria: The Adriatic Sea. 
Apulian: Apulia was a district 

in Southern Italy. 
Atlas: A mountain in Africa. 
Aufldus: A river in Apulia. 
Banausia: A fountain in Apulia 

near the birth-place of Horace. 
Byrsa: The citadel of Carthage. 
Calabrian: Calabria is still a dis- 
trict in Southern Italy. 
Campania: A province south of 

Latium. 
Capua: A city in Campania 

notorious for its luxury. 
Carthage: A famous city in 

Africa, long the chief rival of 

Rome. 
Cirrha: A city in Greece. 
Corinth: One of the chief cities 

in Greece. 
Cyrene: A mountain in Africa. 
Digentian: Digentia was a 

stream in Sabini. 
Eurotas: The river in Greece on 

which Laceda^mon or Sparta 

was built. 
Ilva: The modern island of Elba, 

where Napoleon was exiled. 
Lacedwmon: The most important 

city in Greece, next to Athens. 



Libyan: Libya was in Africa. 

Massilia: The modern Marseilles, 
in France. 

Mevania: A town in Umbria. 

Orontes: A river in Syria. 

Parthenius: A mountain in 
Greece. 

Po: One of the larger Italian 
rivers. 

Rhodes: An island in the iEgean 
Sea sacred to Apollo. 

Samothracia: An island in the 
Grecian seas. 

Sardinia: An island off the coast 
of Italy. 

Sidon: An ancient city in Phoe- 
nicia, mentioned in the Scrip- 
tures. 

Syracuse: A city in Sicily. 

Tarentum: A Greek town in 
Calabria. 

Tartessian: Tartessus was in 
Spain. 

Thunder-Cape: A promontory in 
Greece opposite Calabria. 

Tyre: A famous city in Phoe- 
nicia, usually coupled with 
Sidon. 

Vrgo: A little island off the 
coast of Etruria. 



HOEATIUS. 



The story is told in Livy, Book II, 10. 

1. Lars Porsena: Lars was the old Etruscan word for Lord, or 
Chieftain. It was an hereditary title. 

3. House of Tarquin: The dynasty of Tarquin. As we sa*, the 
House of Hapsburg. 

6. Trysting day: This medieval word is in keeping »vith the 
frankly romantic tone of the Lays. Macaulay freely uses terms 
from the old English ballads. 



NOTES ON MACAULAY'S POEMS 483 

36. Triremes: Vessels propelled by three banks of oars. Famil- 
iar in classic times. 

37. Fair-haired slaves: Slaves from Northern countries, whose 
fair hair was always an amazement to the Romans. 

39. Through corn, etc. In Italy the fields of grain and the vine- 
yards are often gay with flowers, like the bright rosy wild gladiolus, 
and our Love in a Mist, and red tulips. 

40. Cortona: For this and preceding proper names in this 
stanza, see Geographical Index. 

63. Must: The new wine, trodden from the grapes. Wine is 
still made in this way in Italy. 

72. Traced from the right: Etruscan writing, derived from the 
Phoenicians, was written in this way, still practised in some parts 
of the Orient. The Etruscan religion placed great stress on omens 
of various kinds. 

79. Royal dome: The word dome here stands for any impressive 
building. Cf. Latin domus, house. Compare Qoleridge's Ku~bla 
Khan: 

In Xanada did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure-dome decree. 

80. Nurscia: Probably the goddess of good-fortune. 

81. In the early days of Rome there was found in the court* 
yard of the king's palace a golden shield, which the priests de- 
clared had fallen from heaven ; and while it remained safe, they 
said, Rome could not be conquered. To protect it from theft, eleven 
other shields exactly like it were made, and twelve priests ap- 
pointed to guard the twelve shields. 

83. Tale: Compare our modern word "tally." "Tale" in thi? 
sense means the number counted. Cf. Milton's L' Allegro: 

And every shepherd tells his tale. 

96. Hamilius was Tarquin's son-in-law. His home, Tusculum, 
is famous in later Roman annals from the distinguished Romans, 
Cicero in particular, who had villas there. 

100. Champaign: Latin campum. Compare French "Champ" 
and modern Italian "Campagna," by which name the level country 
around Rome still goes. 

113. Note how admirably the impression of breathless haste is 
increased by the absence of any pause except a comma at the end 
of this line. These three stanzas are memorable for the vivid use 
of concrete detail in which Macaulay excels. 

115. Skins of wine: The Cossacks and other Orientals still carry 
liquids in bottles made of skins sewed firmly together. 

121. Roaring: What is the force of this word? 

122. The Tarpeian rock overhung the Tiber. Tarpeia was a 



484 SHOETEB ENGLISH POEMS 

Roman girl who agreed to throw open the doors of the citadel to 
the Sabines, if they would give her "what they wore on their left 
arms." She meant their gold bracelets ; but they threw their 
heavy shields upon her, as she stood waiting for her reward, and 
she was crushed to death. 

123. Burghers: This word suits the mediaeval style of the Lays, 
and also brings the life of ancient Rome closely home to us. 

126. The Fathers of the City: The Senators. Our half -jesting 
phrase, "The City Fathers," goes back to Roman associations. 

130. Reference to a map will make more vivid the way in 
which the foes close in upon the city, till one of the sacred seven 
hills is stormed by them. 

138. Iwis: An archaic word meaning "certainly." Macaulay prob- 
ably mistook the "I" for the personal pronoun, but it is really a 
prefix. 

144. Girded up their gowns: They must be pictured clad in the 
long flowing Roman toga. 

151. The Sublician bridge (su&Zicae=props), a wooden structure 
connecting Janiculum with Rome ; 250 years old at the time of 
Horatius. Its site is not known exactly. 

162. And nearer: Has Macaulay previously varied the length 
of his usual eight-line stanza? Where? Why? What does he 
gain by changing here to a stanza of twelve lines? What is the 
rhyme-scheme? What use of color is there? What of sound? By 
what stages is the "swarthy storm of dust" gradually recognized 
as a glittering army? When does the army get near enough for 
individuals to be known? 

184. Port and vest: "Port" is carriage, bearing. Cf. our "deport- 
ment." "Vest" is from the Latin vestis. Cf. "vestment." 

185. Lucumo: The name given by Latin writers to the Etruscan 
chiefs. 

188. Four-fold shield: Four thicknesses of hide and various 
metals. See Regillus, 276. 

217. Brave Horatius: He was called Codes, the one-eyed. He 
came of a patrician family, the Luceres. Livy says that he "hap- 
pened to be on guard at the bridge." Compare his simple and 
noble speech with that of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon hero, when he 
plunges into the depths of the sea to fight a sea-monster : or with 
the speech of other epic heroes at decisive moments. 

223, 224. Reverence for ancestors and for the gods were close 
together in Roman minds. The Romans usually burned their dead, 
though burial was not unknown. 

229, 230. These maidens were the six Vestal Virgins, girls who, 
vowing never to marry, devoted themselves to the service of Vesta, 
goddess of the hearth. They kept a fire burning, night and day, 
upon Vesta's shrine. The Romans held them in high honor. 

235. i" with two more: In Livy, Horatius offers to hold the 
bridge alone, but the others beg permission to join him. 



NOTES ON MACAULAY 'S POEMS 485 

237. Ton strait path: Cf. Matthew VII, 13 : "Enter ye in at 
the strait gate." Not the same word as "straight." 

241, etc. : Spurius Lartius and Titus Herminius are both men- 
tioned in Livy. 

242. The Luceres (see note, 1. 217), the Ramnes, and the Tities 
were the three Roman tribes. The Ramnes were said to be direct 
descendants of Romulus, founder of Rome ; hence they were called 
proud. 

253. For Romans in Rome's quarrel: Who is speaking here? 
What is the force of the interpolation? 

261. Lands were -fairly portioned: Land conquered by the city 
was supposedly held for the common benefit of the citizens. 

267. The tribunes: The official representatives of tbe tribes of 
the common people, or Plebs, of Rome. The Fathers (patres) were 
the representatives of the nobles, the Patricians. 

269. As we wax hot: Two often quoted and powerful lines. 

274. Harness: Armor, trappings of war. Cf. Macbeth, V. 5, 52; 

At least we'll die with harness on our back. 

277. Commons: Macaulay again suggests the modern parallel 
to old Roman days by using the English parliamentary term. 

304. Ilva's mines: The iron mines of Elba are still worked. 

310. The pale waves of Nar: The waters of the river Nar were 
impregnated with sulphur, which gave them a whitish tinge. 
Notice how intimate Macaulay is with the rivers of Italy. Auser 
is really "dark" with a sort of black mud : Clitumnus flows silvery 
pure : Tiber, at Rome, is tawny "yellow," though nearer its source 
it is blue-green. 

323. Aruns: The Etruscan title for a younger son. 

324. The great wild boar: Macaulay alters the real legend, ac- 
cording to which this boar was so terrible that finally the gods, in 
answer to prayer, destroyed him by lightning. 

333. Fell pirate: Apparently Macaulay invented him. He is 
given fitting home in the small island of Urgo. But if there never 
was a Lausulus, the Etruscans were nevertheless often pirates as 
well as merchants. 

337. Hinds: Country-people, peasants. 

346. And for a space no man came forth: In Livy, the Etruscans 
throw their spears from all sides against the solitary enemy. He 
challenges them singly, but they hesitate and for a time no one 
comes to meet him. 

350. Luna: See Geographical Index. 

366. The she-wolfs litter: See The Prophecy of Capys ; also 
notes to Childe Harold, Canto IV, line 789. 

354. And in his hand he shakes the brand: Can you find other 
examples of internal rhyme in the poem? 

384.- Mount Alvernus: See Geographical Index, page 314. 



486 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

388. The pale augurs: Soothsayers, or priests who interpreted 
the will of the Gods by reading the flight of birds, the entrails of 
sacrificed beasts, etc. 

412-415. These four lines all run on one rhyme. 

492. O Tiber! father Tiber: The Tiber was represented in 
Roman sculpture of a later date as an old river-god reclining, sur- 
rounded by children who represented his tributaries. 

In Livy, this prayer reads as follows : "Father Tiber, I pray 
thee, Holy One, receive these arms and this thy soldier in thy 
propitious waters." Do you prefer this version or Macaulay's? 
Would Horatius have explained, at that moment, that the Romans 
pray to the Tiber, or would he have taken it for granted? 

525. Bore bravely up his chin: Macaulay cites, in connection 
with this line, the following passages : 

Our ladye bare upp her chinne. 

— Ballad of Childe Waters. 

Never heavier man and horse 

Stemmed a midnight torrent's force ; 

Yet through good heart and Our Lady's grace, 

At last he gained the landing-place. 

Scott : Lap of the Last Minstrel. 

545. Could ploiv may mean could plow a furrow round ; which, 
would be a good deal. Most even of the rich Romans owned little 
real estate ; nearly all their property was personal. 

548, 549. What day? And who is speaking? 

550. The Forum was the Roman place of public assembly. In 
the middle was the Rostra, from which all speakers addressed the 
people. The patricians gathered on one side, in the Comitium, the 
plebeians on the other, in the Forum proper. 

558, 559. The story is now finished. Why does Macaulay add 
these stanzas? Does he show good judgment? 

561. The Romans were at war with their neighbors, the Volsci, 
at the time this ballad is supposed to have been written. 

562. The goddess of motherhood. 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 

The battle chronicled in the poem took place some years after the 
expedition of Porsena. Tarquin, still conspiring against Rome, had 
now appealed to the League of the Thirty Latin Cities. His son- 
in-law, Mamilius, nominally head of this League, turned the Thirty 
Cities against Rome. But this final effort of Tarquin, as the 



NOTES ON MACAULAY 'S POEMS 487 

ballad narrates, failed completely. Just where Lake Regillus lay 
is in doubt. Macaulay inclines to favor the idea that it was be- 
tween Frascati and Monte Porzio (the "Porcian Height" of 11. 34, 
148), about fifteen to twenty miles to the north of Rome. 

The story is told in Livy, Book II, chapters 19, 20. 

Title: Castor and Pollux were the twin brothers of Helen, wife 
of Menelaus, King of Sparta, the woman whose fatal beauty was 
the cause of the >Trojan War. The remains of their Temple in 
the Roman Forum can still be seen. 

2. Lictors: The bodyguard of the magistrates. Twelve attended 
each consul. The insignia of office were the fasces, a bundle of 
rods surrounding an axe. 

3. Knights: The "Equites," an order that ranked below the 
Senate and above the plebeians. They were a kind of honorary 
cavalry, recruited from among the rich young men. The use of 
the word is characteristic of Macaulay's intention to quicken in us 
the same romantic feeling toward ancient Rome which we have 
toward the middle ages. It would be interesting to go through 
the Lays, noting how cleverly mediaeval words are used as a parallel 
to Latin expressions. 

7, 8. Castor . . . Mars: The two temples between which the 
procession passed. 

14. The Sacred Hill: A small hill outside the city. The common 
people, in one famous struggle against the patricians, 494 B. C, 
withdrew in a body to this hill and waited there till the Tribunes 
they wanted were granted to them. 

15-20. "The Ides of Quintilis fell on the fifteenth of July. The 
months were counted, and July was the fifth month, hence its 
name (Quintilis). In the Roman calendar, the first day of each 
month was named the 'Calends,' from the verb meaning to 'call' 
The next division was Nones, which, as the ninth day before the 
Ides, fell on different dates in different months. The Ides, a word 
of uncertain derivation, fell on the fifteenth in March, May, July. 
and October, on the thirteenth in other months." 

17. The Martian Kalends: The first of March was the great 
yearly holiday of Roman women. 

18. December's Nones: The fifth of December was a day devoted 
to wild festivities in honour of the god of the woods, Faunus. 

20. Rome's whitest day: See line 156. White was lucky, black 
unlucky. The Latin word Candidatus, our "Candidate," meant 
one dressed in white for good luck. In the Te Deum. the Latin 
adjective for our "Noble army of martyrs" is Candidatus. 

25-32. Follow their course on a map. They pass from their 
Eastern birth-place over mountains, cities, and seas. Their ancient 
mansion is their temple in Laceda3mon or Sparta, the home of 
Menelaus and Helen. Sparta was in ancient days governed by two 
kings at once. 

36-50. In these martial poems, Macaulay loves to pause now 



488 SHOKTEK ENGLISH POEMS 

and then, as in the conclusion of Horatius, to give us idyllic and 
pastoral pictures. The contrast helps us to realize the primitive 
simplicity of life in ancient Italy. 

60. Note how well Macaulay in this stanza leads up to the 
beginning of his narrative. 

69. A hoof-marlc: See Introduction. Every country has its 
mysterious foot-prints around which legends gather. In this poem, 
we are not in the region of plain human story as in Horatius, 
but in the solemn region of myth and religious faith. Our imagi- 
nations must be kindled with awe. The old Romans had a strong 
sense for the sanctity of localities. The word "holy" a few lines 
above is deliberately meant. 

77. Since last: The listeners to the Lay are Romans who are 
still living under the same general conditions as those the poem 
implies. But even they have to have some information. Macaulay 
has shown much dramatic imagination in the way in which he 
puts himself at their precise point of view. 

82. Consul first in place: First to have been elected : he had, 
however, no superior rights. 

89. The Herald of the Latines: Note the stately effect produced 
by the repetition. 

119. Conscript Fathers: The members of the Patrician order 
whose names were written, "conscripti," in the Senate Roll. 

123. A Dictator: Roman history records many an occasion when 
such a temporary head of the State was chosen. 

125. Camerium: A Latin city which Aulus had almost anni- 
hilated. 

132. Axes twenty-four: All the Lictors were now to belong to 
him. 

163. Foredoomed to dogs and vultures: Notice that Macaulay 
in this Lay foregoes appeal to suspense. It is an avowed song 
of triumph. Wherein does the excitement then consist? 

173. Compare note on Childe Harold, Canto IV, 1549. Aricia 
had a temple dedicated to Diana, where the priest was always to be 
a run-away slave who gained the office only by killing his predeces- 
sor. Naturally the priest temporarily in charge always went armed. 

195. Upon Ids head a helmet: Mamilius is in Livy "conspicuous 
for his armor." 

201-204. Why does the metre change? Purple cloth was a 
famous product of Tyre on the coast of Syria. 

209. False Sextus: See Horatius, 11. 199-200, and note. 

217. A woman fair and stately: Lucretia. 

237. The Volscian succors: Allies from the Volscian Hills. 

239. The Roman exiles: The nobles who had been exiles with 
Tarquin. The singer is a Roman and presents them with sympathy 
though disapproval. 

241. Mount Soracte: See Childe Harold, Canto IV, 1. 665, and 
note. 



NOTES ON MACAULAY 'S POEMS 



489 



251. Titus the youngest Tarquin: Really the oldest. 

254. Gave signal for the charge: Livy says : "For the leaders 
were in the battle not merely to guide it by their strategy, but 
mixed in the fray themselves . . . and almost none of the 
chiefs came out of either army without a wound except the Roman 
Dictator." From this hint, Macaulay has elaborated the spirited 
series of single combats in which he imitated Homer. 

263. The Pomptitve fog: See Geographical Index, p. 315. 

277. As glares the famished eagle: Note that Macaulay in- 
troduces these figures of speech much more often here than in 
other parts of the Lays. One reason probably is to afford relief 
from the fighting ; another to follow the epic manner of Homer, 
whose formal similes are famous. 

283. Black Auster: This sympathetic steed is named from the 
Southwest wind, which is a black wind, in Italy. Herminius is of 
course older than in Horatius. 

308. Among his elms: Grape-vines are still frequently trained 
upon trees in Italy. 

309. Mamilius: See note on 195. 

323. A thick wall of oucklers: Bucklers are shields. In classic 
days they were often several feet long, and could well form a wall 
if placed upright edge to edge. 

325. His clients: Clients in old Roman days were the depend- 
ents of a noble house. The term is frequently found. See Vir- 
ginia, 20. 

332. Compare the famous story of- General Wolfe, who drove 
the French from Canada. Near the close of the battle of Quebec, 
while he lay mortally wounded, some one cried in his hearing : 
"They run! They run!" "Who run?" demanded Wolfe: and the 
answer was, "The French!" "Then," answered the general, "I 
can die happy." 

333. But meanwhile in the centre: Note the crescendo : Tarquifl 
and the dictator are now to engage in single combat. 

Compare this battle with classic battles in Homer, and with 
battles described by some of those mediaeval minstrels whom 
Macaulay was imitating : for instance, that in the old French 
Chanson de Geste, The Song of Roland. See translation by O'Hagan 
or by Isabel Butler. 

360. Rome's great Julian line: The Julian House of Rome traced 
its ancestry to lulus, the grandson of the hero of the iEneid. 

375, 376. The first Valerius was called Publicola, the People's 
Friend. 

383. Yeomen: Another strong old English word, which, how- 
ever, has not so close a parallel in Latin as most of the words 
Macaulay uses. 

401. Macaulay alternates single combats with general pictures. 
Note the appeal to eye and ear. 

414. Purple foam: "Purple" is Macaulay's favorite color-word. 



490 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

He works it hard in the Lays and usually to good effect. Do you: 
think it is better here than "bloody" would have been? 

415, 416. A stirring climax. We can imagine how fast and 
loud the minstrel is now singing. The patriotic passion of his 
hearers is at its height. Valerius had once been Consul. 

431. Mamilius' armor was described in detail when first he was 
introduced. Now we see one reason why : he is identified by it 
from afar. 

513. The battle is so far an even thing. At this point, Mac- 
aulay, with high art, pauses, and through the wild ride of the 
charger of Herminius and the touching sorrow of Black Auster, 
gives us relief. This stanza and the next prepare us for the com- 
ing of the Gods. 

The metre in the twenty-ninth stanza should be carefully studied. 
Note . especially how the anapaests in the lines 523, 527, 
531, suggest the gallop, and the spondees of the monosyllabic line 
539 the restrained sorrow and resolution of the old men. 

Compare The Ride of Paul Revere, and Browning's Through the 
Metidja, and How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to 
Aix. 

557. The furies of thy or other: The Furies were in Greek 
mythology three dreadful sisters who took vengeance on murderers. 
"Thy brother" is of course the false Sextus. 

568. Rich Capuan's hall: A hundred years after the singing of 
this Lay, the soldiers of Hannibal were subjugated by the seductive 
luxury of Capua. Compare The Prophecy of Capys, line 187. 

581. The Romans must not be represented as discouraged. 
Aulus is going right on with. the fight. But it is time for the gods 
to come. 

583. The "princely pair" suddenly appear, no one knows whence, 
in the central heat of the battle. One catches the thrill with 
which these lines would be received by a Roman audience. 

588. Their steeds were white as snow: The emphasis on Black 
Auster and on the grey horse of Herminius has been directly 
meant to lead up to our joy in these more strange and beautiful 
creatures. 

603. Samothracia, etc.: Macaulay suggests the wide extent of 
the worship of Castor and Pollux by thus mentioning places in 
Greece, Africa, Southern Italy, and Sicily. 

605. Tarentum: For the proper names in this stanza, see Geo- 
graphical Index, p. 316. The house of the gods is a Temple. 
614. Couched low: Leveled. 

623. The hearth of Vesta: Horatius too, it will be remembered, 
was nerved to his feat by desire to protect the Vestal Virgins. 

649. Our Sire Quirinus: Romulus after death was worshiped as 
Quirinus the Spear-god. 

687-88. The tattle Went roaring through the pass: After the 
detail of the hand to hand fighting, the general term "the battle" 



NOTES ON MACAULAY'S POEMS 491 

is just the summary we want, and the vision of the conflict sweep- 
ing farther and farther away and seen only in the mass, could not 
be better given. 

689, etc. We turn to anxious and expectant Rome in a transi- 
tion as effective as it is abrupt. 

695. The Twelve were the twelve patrician guardians of the 
Golden Shield and its eleven copies. 

697. The High Pontiff: The Pontiff Maximus, the head of the 
priestly order of Rome : a most important personage. 

699. Etruria's colleges: The College in this sense was an as- 
semblage of men devoted to the study of religious ceremonies. 

721. Hail to the great Asylum: According to the legend, Romu- 
lus had, when he founded Rome set apart a certain section of 
the city for a refuge to fugitives. 

Note the stateliness of this greeting. 

723. The fire that turns for aye: The never-dying flame tended 
by the Vestals. 

760. The Dorians: The Greeks of the province in which Lace- 
daemon, the home of the Great Brethren, is situated. 

768. Sit shining on the sails: Castor and Pollux are known in 
astronomy as one of the signs of the Zodiac, the constellation 
Gemini. As such they are invoked as the guides to mariners. 
Others interpret this line as referring to electric or phosphor- 
escent phenomena. 

773. Here hard oy Vesta's Temple: Three columns of the Tem- 
ple of Castor and Pollux, still standing, are among the most 
impressive ruins in the Roman Forum. These columns, however, 
belong to a later date than the supposed date of our Lay. They 
probably belong to a restoration of the Temple in the time of 
Trajan or Hadrian. They are of Parian marble with fine Cor- 
inthian capitals. The temple had eight columns in front and 
probably thirteen on each side. "Dome" is used again in the 
sense of "House" or "Temple." 

793. And pass in solemn order: It is effective that the pro- 
cession should end, as it began, the poem. 



VIRGINIA. 

Horatius and The Battle of the Lake Regillus celebrate the 
exploits of warriors, who, like all men of military prominence 
among the old Romans, belonged to the Patrician class. In Vir- 
ginia we have, as Macaulay points out in his Introduction, an 
attack upon the Patricians. The Licinian Laws, his imaginary 
occasion of the ballad, were three laws introduced by Caius 
Licinius, the Tribune or representative of the people. The first 
proposed to give the Plebs a share in the distribution of the 
public lands, the second to make them eligible to high office, and 



492 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

the third to free them from the terrible "debtor's law" of the time. 
The story is found in Livy, Bk. Ill, 44-49. Maoaulay follows 
I.ivy very closely. 

5. Of fountains running wine: Various Grecian legends, prin- 
cipally of Bacchus the Wine-God, include this idea. 

6. See the legend of Perseus and the Gorgons, and the story of 
Circe, in the Odyssey. 

10. The wicked Ten: The Decemvirs were Patricians who had 
■ been appointed to draw up laws satisfactory to both parties and 
to perform the duties of magistrates for one year. They did well 
at first, but in their second year they used their power tyran- 
nically and became hated by the people. 

14. Tivelve axes: Lictors. See note on Regillus, 1, 2. 

20. The client: The client was expected in return for protec- 
tion to carry out the orders of his patron. The relation was 
hereditary. 

23. Such varlets, etc.: This passage is quite in dramatic char- 
acter. It expresses the bitterness of feeling and the prejudice of 
plebeian Rome. 

24. Licinius. The newly re-elected Tribune. See Title and 
Introduction. 

31. With her small tablets in her hand: These tablets were 
thin pieces of wood covered on one side with wax, on which the 
pupil wrote with an iron pencil called a stylus. They were the 
slates of the time. 

The picture of the little Virginia is in a different tone from 
anything else in the Lays, except the few lines about "The young 
Herminia" in The Battle of the Lake Regillus. 

35. The Sacred Street: The Via Sacra, leading to the Forum. 

36. Lines of the good old song: The story is that the sons of 
Tarquin and their cousin, the husband of Lucrece, made a wager 
as to which possessed the most dutiful wife. They rode home at 
midnight to settle it. The wives . of the king's sons were at a 
banquet, but Lucrece was found spinning among her maidens. 

47. The Forum all alive: We have not before in the Lays been 
allowed to see Rome at peace. This homely, cheerful picture is 
a good contrast to the tragedy to follow. 

50. Panniers: Baskets usually slung at the side of a saddle. 
Originally meant to hold bread, as suggested by the derivation 
from the Latin panis. 

55. With stalls in alleys gay: Very small open shops : there 
are many in Italian cities today. 

64. Punic wares: Carthaginian. Hanno is a Carthaginian 
name. People then talked of Tunic wares as we today talk of 
wares from Paris. 

66. Flesher: Butcher. These were all well-known professions 
among the Romans. 

74. The year of the sore sickness: The plague, which devas- 



NOTES ON MACAU LAY'S POEMS 493 

tated Rome, in 463 B. C. September is the most unhealthy month 
there. 

76. Two augurs: See Note on Horatius, 3SS. 

81. No Tribune: Note how repeatedly the purpose of the poem 
is indicated. 

83. Honest Sextius: Fellow-Tribune with Licinius. 

86. Murwna's skirt: The dress of the laboring men was not the 
toga, but a short garment something like a Scotch kilt. 

87. The young Icilius: Betrothed to Virginia. 

89. That column: Three Roman brothers, the Horatii (unre- 
lated to the hero of Macaulay's Lay) fought three brothers of 
Alba, the Curatii, to settle a dispute between Alba and Rome. All 
the Curatii and two of the Horatii were killed : the surviving 
brother brought back in triumph the armor of his enemies and 
hung it on this column in the Forum. 

92. The burning words: Macaulay loved political oratory. Com- 
pare this speech of Icilius with Mark Antony's speech over the 
body of Caesar. 

94. Quirites: Roman citizens: The word is said to be derived 
from Cures, a Sabine town, whose inhabitants were called Quirites. 
"After the Sabines and the Romans had united themselves into 
one community, under Romulus, the name of Quirites was taken 
in addition to that of Romani, the people calling themselves in a 
civil capacity Quirites, while in a political and military capacity 
they retained the name of Romans." — Andrews. 

95. Serviusr Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome, a wise law- 
giver, supposedly of divine origin, who gave the city her military 
constitution. 

97. Those false sons: One of the best-known stories in Roman 
legendary history is that of Brutus, an early consul, who, having 
discovered his two sons to be involved in a conspiracy to restore 
Tarquin, ordered them to be beheaded. 

98. Scwvola means left-handed. Caius Mucius, a young Roman 
noble, gained tbis surname through an exploit at the time when 
Porsena of Clusium was besieging Rome. He went into tbe Etrus- 
can camp in an attempt to kill the king, but was discovered. 
Brought before Porsena and questioned, he thrust his right hand 
into the flame of a torch and held it there quietly, to show how 
little he cared for torture ; then he informed Porsena that there 
were in Rome hundreds more young men as brave as he. The 
Etruscan was so impressed that he at once proposed peace on 
terms favorable to Rome. 

102. See Regillus, 1. 14, note. 

104. Marcian fury: Caius Marcius, nicknamed Coriolanus, from 
Corioli, one of the towns he conquered, was banished from Rome, 
and in revenge led the Volscians against the city. On the point of 
victory he was checked by the tears and prayers of his mother and 
his wife, who had been sent to him to intercede for the city. See 



494 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Regillus, 1. 356, note. The Fabian pride refers to the action of 
the troops of Caeso Fabius when they refused to storm the camp 
of the enemy, and so, by leaving the victory incomplete, deprived 
the general of his triumph. 

105. The fiercest Quinctius: A son of the great Cincinnatus, 
banished for his opposition to the Plebs. 

106. The haughtiest Claudius: Grandfather of the Claudius of 
this poem. 

111. No crier to the pollings: The Romans were summoned to 
the elections by word of mouth and by the sound of a trumpet. 

115. The holy fillets: The fillets were the insignia of the priest- 
hood and only Patricians might be priests. They were small bands 
worn on the hair. The purple gown was worn by consuls and 
equites on public occasions. 

116. The curule chair was the chair of state. It was inlaid 
with ivory and had neither arms nor back. In curule chairs sat 
the Fathers at the Eastern Gate in the Battle of the Lake Regillus, 
stanza 37, waiting for news of the battle. In these chairs the 
Gauls found the City Fathers sitting when they raided the city 
in 390 B. C. 

The Car is the chariot used in triumphal processions : the laurel 
crown the wreath worn in such triumphs by the victor. 

117. Press us for your cohorts: Impress. 
120. Usance: Usury. 

122. Your dens of torment: The debtors' prisons in Rome were 
notorious for horrors. 

124. Holes: Stocks. Wooden frames in which the feet were 
held. 

130. Ascanius, son of JEneas, is said to have founded Alba 
Longa three hundred years before Romulus laid the walls of Rome. 
See The Prophecy of Capys. 

133. Corinthian mirrors: Corinth, like Capua, was famous for 
its luxury. It produced fine bronze ; mirrors in classic times were 
made of polished metal. 

144. The asterisks throughout this poem are Macaulay's own. 
See his Introduction for the portion of the story which he has 
here omitted. He calls his verses the fragments of a lay. 

146. The Roman butchering was done in the open street. 

148. The great sewer: The Cloaca Maxima. 

149. Whittle: Butcher's knife. 

153. Why does he use the past tense? 

157. My civic crown: A crown of oak leaves was granted to 
any soldier who saved the life of a Roman freeman in battle by 
killing his opponent. 

162. His urn: In which the ashes were kept after his dead 
body had been burned. 

193. O dwellers in the nether gloom: An invocation of the goda 
of the lower world, especially the Furies. 



NOTES ON MACAULAY 'S POEMS 495 

213. Cypress crown: The cypress is the tree of churchyards, 
especially in Italy. 

217. Crafts: Occupations: as in our phrase "Arts and Crafts." 

221, 222. Scan these lines. 

228. The Pincian Hill: One of the Seven Hills, then on the 
outskirts of the town. 

242. Tribunes ! Hurrah for Tribunes ! The occasion of the 
ballad is to describe this popular rising. 

246. Macaulay says of this family in his Introduction : "In war 
they were not distinguished by skill or valor. One of them had 
been entrusted with an army and had failed ignominiously. None 
of them had been honored with a Triumph. None of them had 
achieved any martial exploit." 

249. Caius of Corioli: Shakespeare's Coriolanus, who took his 
name from the town he had conquered. See note, line 104. 

251. The yoke of Furius: Marcus Furius Camillus drove the 
Gauls from Rome after they had captured it in 390 B. C. See 
The Prophecy of Capys, 193-196, note. 

257. A Cosstis: Surname of a house belonging to the gens Cor- 
nelia. See Lake Regillus, stanza 23. 

277. Sea-marks: Light-houses. 

278. The great Thunder Cape: See Geographical Index, p. 316. 
It was a promontory in Greece, opposite Brindisi, of a volcanic 
nature. 

2S6. The ridicule and unrestrained abuse heaped upon Appius 
give a truly popular quality to this Lay, quite different from the 
dignity of all the others. 



THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS. 

In order fully to enjoy this Lay it is necessary to bear in mind 
the occasion on which it is supposed to be sung. Macaulay's pic- 
turesque Introduction gives a full account of this occasion, the 
first and dramatic victory of the Romans over the Greeks, 275 
B. C. It will be noticed that Horatius is presented as composed 
three hundred and sixty years after the founding of the city : 
The Prophecy of Capys four hundred and seventy-nine years after. 
As Macaulay tells us, the age during which ballad poetry could be 
composed is drawing to an end and the period of literary poetry is 
about to dawn. But this Ballad, supposed to be written last, car- 
ries us back to the very foundation of Rome and thus spans the 
whole period which Macaulay had in mind. 

1. Amulius, grand-uncle of Romulus, founder of Rome, was 
king of the city Alba Longa, which had been founded by Ascanius, 
son of iEneas, on the hillside above the Alban Lake. Amulius 
dragged Numitor, his brother, from the throne and by the advice 
of Camers, the high-priest, buried Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia, 



496 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

alive, and threw the two baby boys who had been born to her and 
the God Mars into the Tiber. Through the care of the gods, how- 
ever, the little twins were saved and nursed by a wolf till a shep- 
herd found them and adopted them as his foster-children. 

4. Aventine: Aventinus was a descendant of JEneas. 

25. Notice the change in the metre : it would accompany a 
change in the music, to a slower and more solemn strain. 

56. And on the blade a head: This picture has a barbaric cast. 
Of Irish Cuchulin we are told : "In one hand he carried nine 
heads, nine also in the other : the which in token of valor and of 
skill in arms he held at arms' length and in sight of all the army 
shook." "Head-hunting" still lingers among the Igorots in the 
Philippines. The picture Macaulay draws here indicates an earlier 
epoch than do the pictures of the other Lays. 

80. Chib and axe and bow: Very different weapons from those 
used in The Battle of the Lake Regillus. 

94. Capys the sightless seer: Can you remember any other 
instances in literature of blind old minstrels? 

115. Arabian perfumes and Syrian dyes were loved and much 
used in the more effeminate days of Rome. Cf. Lady Macbeth : 
"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." 

121. Rome is not to be a merely commercial city : nor a center 
of effeminate luxury : nor a health resort. All three were familiar 
types to the ancients. 

132. The spirit of thy sire: This is the text of the following 
stanzas. The present stanza is Macaulay's interpretation of the 
Roman spirit. 

147. She dies in silence: For the same legend see Byron, Childe 
Harold, Canto IV, line 185. 

149. Pomona: The Roman goddess of fruits and orchards. 

150. Liber: An Italian rural deity. 

151. Pales: A rustic divinity, it is uncertain whether god or 
goddess. All these are the native Italian gods, — no importations 
from Greece. 

155. The epithet ivory is especially appropriate for the moon- 
light of the South. The chestnut is a common tree in Italy. 

156. Thy father: The military genius of the Romans probably 
suggested the myth that the founder of the city was the son of 
Mars. 

169. The soft Campanian: The fertile region south of Latium 
bred an effeminate race to whom contemptuous reference is often 
made in Latin literature. 

175. His marble Nymphs: The distinctive mark of each race as 
conceived by the fierce and haughty Roman is given in a line or 
half-line. 

176. Scrolls of wordy lore: Ancient books were written upon 
leaves of papyrus or parchment which were joined end to end and 
rolled on a long stick. The scroll was then unrolled to be read. 



NOTES ON MACAULAY 'S POEMS 497 

177. The pilum: The long Roman spear. The trench was used 
in defense, the mound in attack. The Roman legion was made up 
of different numbers at different times, usually five or six thousand, 
divided into ten cohorts, each officered by six centurions or cap- 
tains of a hundred. 

181. See Virginia, 116. The Triumphs in which the conqueror 
was borne in his triumphant car up the Capitoline Hill to the 
Temple of Jove with his captives in his train, were the culminating 
moments of the public life of Rome. It was on the occasion of 
such a triumph that this Lay is supposed to be sung. 

185. The Volscian: The reference is to the wars of Coriolanus. . 

189. The Lucumos: See Horatius 1, note. 

191. The proud Samnites: Rome fought three wars against the 
Samnites, who lived southeast of Latium. 

193. The Gaul shall come against thee: In this rapid prediction 
of the victorious advance of Rome, Macaulay dismisses most of her 
victories in one or two lines : but he puts victory over the Gauls in 
a four-line stanza by itself, to mark its importance by isolating it. 
The more special reference is probably to the famous victory over 
Brennus, in 390 B. C, when the cackling of the geese saved the 
city. 

197. The Greek shall come against thee: Now we come to the 
especial victory which the Lay is written to commemorate. See 
Macaulay's Introduction. 

200. The huge earth-shaking beast: The elephant, which so 
terrified the Romans that they were hard put to it to gain the 
victory. 

207. False Tarentum: It was "gay Tarentum" in The Battle of 
the Lake Regillus. 

215. Mark the change of metre. It gives an effect of gloating 
slowly over the feast. 

217. Hurrah! for the good weapons: The Singer strikes his 
instrument more loudly and his voice rings forth. 

225. Hurrah! for the great triumph: Here comes the prophetic 
vision of the Triumph, sung to an audience which has just wit- 
nessed the Triumph itself or perhaps awaits its coming. 

230. The Red King: Pyrrhus. His name means Red. 

232. Recall the story in the Introduction. 

235, etc. These are the spoils of the East, the richest, as 
Macaulay reminds us, ever yet seen in a Roman triumph. 

249. Manius Curius: His other name was Dentatus. He had 
defeated Pyrrhus and the Epirotes in a great battle at Beneventum 
in Samnium. 

257. Rosea . . . Mevania: Rosea was famous for its horses, 
Mevania for its beautiful white bulls such as maybe seen in old 
Italian pictures of festal processions. 

266. Th$ Suppliant's Grove: The Asylum of Romulus. See 
Regillus 721, note. 



498 SHOETER ENGLISH POEMS 

269-288. This last stanza in a superb sweep looks out over the 
whole expanse of the Roman Empire to be, from Greece, Syria, 
Egypt, and Africa, to far Northern lands and the remoter East. 
The Lay places us at the starting point of Roman history and con- 
cludes with a summary of the glory of Rome at its zenith. 

277. The reference is to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the 
seven wonders of the ancient world. 

276. Dark red colonnades: Colonnades made of porphyry, a 
stone much used in Egypt. 

280. Byrsa: See Geographical Index, p. 482. 

285. Where Atlas: Look up the giant Atlas in a classical dic- 
tionary. Here the reference is rather to the African mountain 
range named after him. 



IVRY. 

NOTES. 

Ivry is a town forty miles west of Paris. Here on May 14, 1590, 
Henry IV, called Henry of Navarre, at the head of the Huguenots, 
won a victory over the Catholics led by the Duke of Mayenne, who 
was a brother of the Duke of Guise. This battle was an episode in 
the long struggle between the French Huguenots and the Catholics, 
which lasted from 1560 into the 17th century. It occurred during 
the eighth civil war, which was known as the War of the Three 
Henrys — Henry III, King of France, Henry, Duke of Guise, and 
Henry of Navarre, later Henry IV. 

Line 2. King Henry of Navarre, Henry IV of France, son of 
Jeanne D'Aubray, Queen of Navarre. He succeeded to the throne 
of France in 1588, on the assassination of Henry III. In 1593 
he turned Catholic, to win the suffrages of the Catholic party in 
possession of the Capital, with the historical remark that "Paris 
was well worth a Mass." He remains to this day a favorite hero 
of the French people. 

5. Rochelle, a French seaport, at this time one of the chief 
maritime cities of France. During the Reformation it was a 
centre of Calvinism. After the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, it 
held out for six months and a half against the Catholic army, 
which was finally obliged to raise the siege. 

12. The Army of the League: This was the League of the 
Catholics against the Protestants, formed in 1575 by the in- 
stigation of Catherine de Medici under the leadership of the bril- 
liant and popular Duke of Guise. 

14. Appenzet is a Canton in Switzerland, a Catholic centre. 

Egmont's Flemish spears: The soldiers of the Count of Egmont, 
& former governor of the Netherlands, who had been beheaded for 
treason in 1568. 



THE AEMADA: NOTES 499 

15. The brood of false Lorraine. There were three brothers of 
the house of Lorraine : the Duke of Guise ; the Cardinal of Lor- 
raine, who was especially fierce against the Huguenots ; and the 
Duke of Mayenne, the leader in the present battle. 

17. Seine's empurpled flood: An allusion to the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, which began in Paris, August' 24, 1572, and spread 
through the provinces. The total number of Protestants killed is 
estimated from 30,000 to 70,000. The outrage was instigated by 
Catherine de Medici. 

18. Coligny: Admiral Coligny, leader of the Protestants, was 
killed in the massacre. 

34. Guelders was the Netherlands. We have already heard in 
line 14 of the Flemish spears. Almayne is Germany. Cf. French 
'Allemagne." 

36. The golden lilies, the fleur de lys of France, mentioned also 
in the Armada, line 22. 

48. How do you admire this sentiment of "gentle Henry"? 

54. Rosny: Maximilian, Lord of Rosny, an important Huguenot 
noble. 

63. Philip, King of Spain and chief of the Catholic powers. 
Spain at this time had large possessions in the New World. 

66. Burghers of St. Genevieve: Genevieve was the patron saint 
of Paris. Paris was Catholic, and opposed to Henry. 



THE AEMADA. 

NOTES. 

The subject of the poem is the approach of the great Spanish 
fleet which Philip II of Spain sent against England in 1588, and 
which was disastrously overcome and wrecked. See for other 
treatments of the theme in English literature, Kingsley's Westward 
Ho! and Masefield's poetic drama, Philip. 

Line 4. The richest spoils of Mexico: Mexico had been since 
1519 a dependency of Spain, which drew thence much treasure. 
Cf. Ivry, line 63. 

7. Aurigny's Isle: The Island of Alderney in the Channel. 

10. The tall Pinta: One of the Spanish ships. 

23. The allusion is to the Battle of Crecy, fought in 1346, in 
which Edward III defeated Philip VI of France. The Genoese _ 
bowmen in this battle were mercenaries. The blind King of 
Bohemia had joined Philip's army. Since the great French wars 
of the 14th century, England had had no such dramatic encounter 
with a foreign foe as that which she was now to have with 
Spain. 



500 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

25. Agincourt: Scene of the famous battle in 1415, in which 
Henry V conquered the French. 

30. Our glorious semper eadem. This was the motto of Queen 
Elizabeth. 

85. Eddystone lighthouse is in the English Channel, on the west 
coast of England, off Cornwall, south of Plymouth. 

To Berwick oounds: Berwick was a border town on the extreme 
northeast coast of England, between Northumberland and Scotland. 
Lynn is a seaport of Norfolk. Milford Bay is on the southwest 
coast of Wales, in the county of Pembroke. 

Macaulay follows his blazing beacons first around the seacoast, 
mentioning the headlands. Then he takes us inland past Stone- 
henge, and then to London and the Tower. Then all around in 
different directions the messengers fly, till the great beacons are 
finally lighted, the Welsh hills, Malvern, Skiddaw, etc. Most of 
the places he mentions can be found in the geography. 

48. Richmond Hill. Now the messenger approaches London. 

67. Twelve fair counties. The view from Malvern Hills is one 
of the widest in England. The counties may have been Worcester, 
Hereford, Gloucester, Monmouth, Stafford, Salop, Warwick, Oxford, 
Radnor, Brecknock, Berks, and Wilts. 



THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. 

NOTES. 

The Battle of Naseby was fought on June 14, 1642, between the 
Parliamentary army under Cromwell and the Royalist forces under 
King Charles. The success of Cromwell marked the wreck of the 
Royal cause. 

"The two armies met near Naseby, to the northwest of North- 
ampton. The King was eager to fight. 'Never have my affairs 
been in as good a state,' he cried; and Prince Rupert was as im- 
patient as his uncle. On the other side, even Cromwell doubted 
the success of the new experiment. 'I can say this of Naseby,' 
he wrote soon after, 'that when I saw the enemy draw up and 
march in gallant order toward us, and we, a company of poor 
ignorant men, to seek to order our battle, the general having com- 
manded me to order all the horse, I could not, riding alone about 
my business, but smile out to God in praises, in assurance of vic- 
tory, because God would by things that are not bring to naught 
things that are. Of which I had great assurance, and God did it.' 
The battle began with a furious charge of Rupert uphill, which 
routed the wing opposed to him under Ireton ; while the Royalist 
foot, after a single discharge, clubbed their muskets and fell on 
the centre under Fairfax so hotly that it slowly and stubbornly 



THE BATTLE OF NASEBY: NOTES 501 

gave way, but the Ironsides were conquerors on the left. A single 
charge broke the northern horse under Langdale, who had already 
fled before them at Marston Moor ; and, holding his troops firmly 
in hand, Cromwell fell with them on the flank of the Royalist foot 
in the very crisis of its success. A panic of the Royal reserve, 
and its flight from the field, aided his efforts ; it was in vain that 
Rupert returned with forces exhausted by pursuit, that Charles, in 
a passion of despair, called on his troopers for 'one charge more.' 
The battle was over : artillery, baggage, even the Royal papers, 
fell into the conqueror's hands. Five thousand men were sur- 
rendered ; only 2,000 followed the King in his headlong flight upon 
the west. The war was ended at a blow." — Green's Short History 
of the English People, Ch. VIII, Sec. 7. 

Compare with this poem a famous passage in Macaulay's Essay 
on Milton, contrasting the Puritan and the Cavalier, The prose 
reads like a commentary on the verse. 

Title. Obadiah, etc.: This weird name is no stranger than many 
of the Scriptural names which devotion to the Bible and a feeble 
sense of humor caused our Puritan forefathers to give their 
children. 

Ireton's regiment: Ireton was a prominent figure in the Civil 
War. He was an Independent in religion, who started his military 
career as captain of a troop of horse raised in Nottingham, where 
his estates were situated. He signed the warrant for the execu- 
tion of the King, and served his party well as Cromwell's lieutenant 
in Ireland. 

11. The man of blood: Charles I, so called by the Puritans be- 
cause he made war on his Parliament. The reference is to 
II Samuel, 16 :7. 

12. Rupert of the Rhine. Rupert was the nephew of Charles, 
and Elector Palatine. His reckless audacity here at Naseby and 
at Marston Moor commanded admiration, but was disastrous to his 
cause. 

14. The General is, of course, Cromwell. The Scriptural allusion 
and phrases of the poem, the Bible in Cromwell's hand, and the 
whole stern religious spirit are true to history. The account of the 
battle by Green, quoted above, makes the action of the poem clear. 

22. Troops from Alsace followed Rupert. Pages of Whitehall 
were, of course, youths attached to the English Court. 

38. Temple Bar: A famous gateway of London, dividing Fleet 
Street from the Strand. Above it were exposed the heads of 
traitors. 

43. Broad-pieces: Coins. 

55. The University of Oxford remained to the end faithful to 
the King. Durham was the seat of the Archbishop of York. 

57. She of the Seven Hills: The Church of Rome. A favorite 
Puritan attribution. 

60. The Houses are the Houses of Parliament. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 



503 



MATTHEW AKNOLD. 1822—1888. 
I. 

Matthew Arnold, probably the most eminent English 
critic, and certainly one of the most notable among 
Victorian poets, was born in the year in which Shelley 
died. He was three years younger than Buskin and 
George Eliot, twenty-seven years younger than the 
veteran of Victorian letters, Thomas Carlyle. His 
books, including both poetry and prose, express per- 
haps with more sensitiveness than those of any other 
man, the main currents in the intellectual life of the 
central portion of the Victorian period. 

By inheritance, by temperament, and by circum- 
stance, Matthew Arnold was a scholar. In many respects 
he reminds one of Gray, concerning whom he wrote an 
admirable essay. There is the same fastidiousness of 
taste, the same blending of classical and romantic in- 
stincts, the same academic stamp. Yet if we look at 
the whole scope and sweep of Matthew Arnold's achieve- 
ment, we must judge him to have been a larger and 
nobler man than his eighteenth century counterpart. 
Gray idled away his life in pleasant academic seclusion, 
devoting himself to self-culture. How well and on how 
many lines Arnold served his day and generation, the 
following summary will show. 

The events in Arnold's honorable, laborious life may 
be briefly recorded. His early associations were with 
the lovely country of the English lakes, and he was 
505 



506 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

brought up in a feeling of reverence for the great poet 
Wordsworth, the interpreter of that region. His father, 
Dr. Thomas Arnold, was Head-Master of Rugby. Mat- 
thew Arnold had his schooling partly at Rugby, partly 
at Winchester, another public school. That fine story, 
which every boy should know, Tom Browns School-days 
by Thomas Hughes, tells what the great school was 
like in the days of Matthew Arnold and of his friends 
Arthur Stanley and Arthur Hugh Clough. From 
school, Arnold passed to the university of Oxford, which 
he always dearly loved, and more than once beauti- 
fully praised. Oxford in the forties was not like the 
cold eighteenth century Cambridge of Gray. It had 
lately been stirred to the depths by a great religious 
movement, the revival in the Church of England known 
as the Oxford or Tractarian Movement. The leader 
of the movement, John Henry Newman, who was soon 
to leave the Church of England for that of Rome, 
was still preaching at the University Church, St. Mary's. 
Pusey, Keble, and other leaders were familiar figures. 
The type of religion then flourishing at Oxford did not 
attract Matthew Arnold, who, though religious, was 
neither a mystic nor interested in controversies between 
churches. But there is no doubt that the excitement 
over things of the mind and soul that then possessed 
the finer young men in the University, fostered that 
keen and wistful interest in spiritual matters which is 
the undertone of all his writings. 

Arnold took the Kewdigate prize for an English 
poem, and was elected Fellow of Oriel College in 1844. 
He published his first volume of poems, The Strayed 
Reveller, in 1848. That was a year of profound social 



MATTHEW AENOLD 507 

upheavals. Revolutions, centering in France and Italy, 
were shaking the Continent; in England the year saw 
the cnlmination and collapse of the Chartist movement, 
the first general uprising of the working people in the 
Victorian age. In the midst of this excitement, the 
quiet beauty of Arnold's little volume aroused little 
attention, though it is interesting to find that the book 
was reviewed by William Michael Rossetti, in The Germ, 
the short-lived organ of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 
Arnold published other volumes of poems iri 1853, 1858, 
and 1867. But his leisure for literary work was slight. 
At twenty-nine he married, and in order to support 
himself and his family accepted the position of Inspector 
of Schools, which he held almost till the end of his life. 
He died in 1888. During all the intervening years he 
put his best energy and labor at the service of his 
professional work, meeting its severe demands with 
faithful, gallant, though sometimes rueful cheer. He 
contrived, however, in his scant hours of freedom, not 
only to write poems, but to enrich English literature 
with a large body of valuable criticism, the most sane 
and sensitive that it possesses. When one looks at the 
goodly row of volumes in the collected edition of Arnold's 
works, and reflects that they represent no deliberate life- 
work, but the product of a scant and hard-earned leisure, 
one feels a resolution to allow no handicaps, however 
serious, to serve as excuse for failure to give the world 
one's best. 

Arnold was also for a time Professor of Poetry at 
Oxford. He travelled much on the Continent, in the 
interests of education, and he was at all times a studious 
lover of European literature, doing much to enlarge the 



508 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

intellectual horizon of his countrymen. Coleridge and 
Carlyle, in an earlier generation, had tried' hard "to 
Germanize the public 5? Buskin and Kossetti, in Arnold's 
own day, were bringing their countrymen under the 
spell of Italy. The country to which Arnold was espe- 
cially drawn was France, and through a constant effort 
to familiarize the English public with French literature 
and social life he sought to conquer that foe to all 
sound culture and right living, intellectual provincialism. 
Arnold's own mind had many of the qualities that he 
particularly valued in the French. His freshness and 
elasticity of sympathies no less than his discriminating 
insight entitle him to be called an English Sainte Beuve. 
Twice Arnold visited America on lecture-tours, and 
told us many salutary truths concerning ourselves. 
Despite his keen criticism, he liked much in our country. 
Indeed, his unfailing critical honesty never degenerated 
into indifference or contempt. He was a sharp critic of 
the English national life and religion, but England had 
no more loyal son than he, and he remained to his death 
a faithful communicant of her established church. In 
private life Arnold knew much sorrow, courageously 
borne : three of his sons died within four years. He was 
a man devoted to his family and his friends : to flowers, 
to animals, and to all that is lovely in natural scenery. 
To those at a distance, he sometimes seemed harsh and 
supercilious; but the ones nearest him were the ones 
who loved and honored him most. 

II. 

Arnold's prose writings may be divided into three 
groups: criticism of letters, of society, and of religion. 



MATTHEW ABNOLD 509 

He first turned to criticism of literature, and many peo- 
ple think that his best and 'most enduring work was 
in this field. His first volumes of Essays in Criticism, 
comprising, besides several essays on individual writers, 
two admirable studies of the function of criticism and 
of the intellectual situation in England, appeared in 1865. 
The days were past when University professors delivered 
no lectures, and two illuminating volumes, Celtic Litera- 
ture and On Translating Homer, were the fruits of Mr. 
Arnold's professorship. The admirable quality of his 
work was swiftly recognized, and the essays which 
he contributed as introductions to editions of various 
authors, or as memorial addresses, have all been collected. 
But his mind widened from the contemplation of 
literature to the contemplation of life. And soon he 
gave the public stimulating criticism of contemporaneous 
society. Culture and Anarchy, the volume in which 
he expressed himself most fully, was published in 1869. 
It is one of the most stimulating books of social criti- 
cism in the Victorian age, a period that was noteworthy 
for brilliant work in this line. Like his great contempo- 
raries, Carlyle and Euskin, Arnold is out of sympathy 
with his age : unlike them, he has no reactionary im- 
pulses nor yearnings for the restoration of past social 
conditions. He accepts democracy, which they never 
did, and he understands the necessity of social evolution. 
The goal of that evolution is, as he sees it, social equality : 
the means, the extension of that culture which is a pas- 
sion for "making reason and the Will of God prevail." 
The thought-provocative title of the book gives the clue 
to his ideas. Many later essays are in the same vein as 
Culture and Anarchy. Two in particular, entitled Bern- 



510 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

ocracy and Equality, may be mentioned as containing a 
clear expression of his ripest wisdom. It is instructive to 
compare the social discontent of Arnold with the com- 
placency of Macanlay. 

A man of Arnold's serious nature and tradition could 
not pause with criticism of letters and society: he was 
impelled to discuss religion also. For England was in 
a ferment of religious unrest, and all the great teachers, 
from Carlyle and Newman to George Eliot, had their 
solutions to offer. The title of Arnold's most important 
book on religious problems, Literature and Dogma, sug- 
gests his distinctive attitude. He felt that the highest 
values of Christianity could never be lost, but that they 
were to be retained under the form not of dogma but of 
literature. "Morality touched with emotion," was his 
famous definition of religion. God and the Bible, 
St. Paul and Protestantism, were books on similar lines. 
Arnold meant to help people to keep their faith, but he 
often did just the opposite. Deeply in earnest as he 
was, there was a flippancy of tone about his religious 
writings that troubled and unsettled his readers. His 
criticism on religion met a need of the day, but it is 
commonly judged to be more transitory in character 
and value than his criticism on letters or on social life. 
We may, however, notice that his attitude is in certain 
respects far more familiar today than it was when he 
wrote. 

In all phases of Arnold's critical work, we feel the 
play of those qualities which he tells us himself a sound 
critic should possess : intellectual curiosity, disinterested- 
ness, sincerity. Add to these a choice if not unerring 



MATTHEW AKNOLD 511 

taste and a style at its best captivating and lucid, and we 
see what a stimulus his work as a critic gave to his age. 

III. 

That this critic should also have been a poet of a high 
order of excellence is at first surprising. But the sur- 
prise vanishes on -closer knowledge, for the poetry shows 
the same qualities as the prose. It answers to the much- 
discussed definition which he once gave. Poetry, said he, 
is "a criticism of life." This may not be true of all 
poetry, but it is in the main true of his, which is the best 
expression we have, if we except the work of his friend 
and brother poet, Arthur Hugh Clough, of certain char- 
acteristic phases in the experience of intellectual men in 
the Victorian age. In style, his poetry is exquisitely 
wrought : it is chiselled like a cut gem. Some people think 
it cold, but for others the emotion is all the more moving 
because the poet never yields to it without reserve, and 
keeps firm mastery over his instrument. Much of this 
emotion is elegiac in character. Arnold wrote one elabo- 
rate and beautiful elegy, Thyrsis, on his friend Clough. 
His verses on his father, on Goethe, on his little dog 
Geist, and on others whom he had loved, are full of noble 
melody and tender feeling. Moreover, all his more im- 
portant poems — Empedocles on 2Etna, a lyrical drama, 
Switzerland, Stanzas on the Grande Chartreuse, and the 
most felicitous lyrics — are charged with under tones of 
regret for what is past, mingled with uncertainty about 
the future. Arnold had in his early years a theory that 
poetry should always deal with great action and should 
be universal in its appeal. He withdrew his drama, 
Empedocles on 2Etna, for a time, because it failed to 



512 SHOKTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

meet this requirement. But, in truth, nearly all his 
poetry fails to meet it. It deals, not with action, but 
with emotions and ideals. It appeals not to what is 
universal, but to experiences known only to the few. 
Arnold's instincts impelled him to write poems contrary 
to his critical convictions. Yet the poetry is none the 
worse for this; neither need the critical convictions be 
wholly despised. As a rule, these convictions were sound : 
but Arnold's poetry sprang from very special conditions, 
and it met a special need, — the interpretation of certain 
phases in modern experience none the less human or 
deserving of study because they were hardly universal. 

IV. 

In Sohrdb and Rustum Arnold did for once carry out 
his critical theories. The poem deals with noble and 
heroic action: and the story of the father slaying his 
own son under a misapprehension, must appeal to the 
universal heart. It is indeed an old, old story, held in 
common by Aryan, Celtic, and Germanic tradition. 

In Germanic legend it appears as the epic Hadubrand. 
Only a fragment has come down to us : in this, 
Hadubrand the son is killed, like Sohrab. This is 
probably the more ancient outcome: but in younger 
tradition (see the Thidrehsaga, a German folk-song) the 
combat ends in a reconciliation. 

An interesting version of the tale may be found in 
Irish literature. It tells us how Cuchullin, the hero of 
the Tales of the Eed Branch, otherwise known as the 
Cycle of Ulster, slew unwitting his son Connla. Aif e, the 
mother of Connla, was a warrior maid with whom 
Cuchullin had wrestled in his youth. In parting, he 



MATTHEW AENOLD 513 

bade her place a ring on the finger of the son who 
was to be born to them, and send the lad to Ireland to 
find his father. The boy is sent, but according to an 
old Irish custom is put under "geasa," or fairy bonds, 
never to reveal his name and never to refuse a combat. 
He. knows all feats except one, the use of a special 
weapon called the "Gae Bulga." He fights ignorantly 
with Cuchullin, who slays him with this weapon and 
only as the boy is dying recognizes the ring on his finger. 
Over his son's body Cuchullin utters a fine lament. 

The story in this version is wild and primitive. In the 
older Persian form also it has more of the fairy-tale than 
in the version Arnold chose; Sohrab is only ten years 
old when, assisting a warrior maiden in the defence of 
a castle, he enters into single combat with his father 
and is slain by him. The story is told by the Persian 
epic poet Firdusi in his epic of Shahnameh. He calls it 
"A tale full of the waters of the eye." The version of 
the story followed by Arnold is that given after Firdusi 
by Sir John Malcolm in his History of Persia: 

"The young Sohrab . . . had left his mother, and sought 
fame under the banners of Afrasiab, whose armies he com- 
manded, and soon obtained a renown beyond that of all con- 
temporary heroes but his father. He had carded death and 
dismay- into the ranks of the Persians, and had terrified the 
boldest warriors of that country, before Eustum encountered 
him, which at last that hero resolved to do, under a feigned 
name. They met three times. The first time they parted by 
mutual consent, though Sohrab had the advantage; the second, 
the youth obtained a victory, but granted life to his unknown 
father; the third was fatal to Sohrab, who, when writhing in 
the pangs of death, warned his conqueror to shun the vengeance 
that is inspired by parental woes, and bade him dread the rage 
of the mighty Eustum, who must soon learn that he had slain 



514 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

his son Sohrab. These words, we are told, were as death to the 
aged hero; and when he recovered from a trance, he called in 
despair for proofs of what Sohrab had said. The afflicted and 
dying youth tore open his mail, and showed his father a seal 
which his mother had placed on his arm when she discovered to 
him the secret of his birth, and bade him seek his father. The 
sight of his own signet rendered Eustum quite frantic; he 
cursed himself, attempting to put an end to his existence, and 
was only prevented by the efforts of his expiring son. After 
Sohrab 's death, he burnt his tents and all his goods, and car- 
ried the corpse to Seistan, where it was interred; the army of 
Turan was, agreeably to the last request of Sohrab, permitted 
to cross the Oxus unmolested. To reconcile us to the improba- 
bility of this tale, we are informed that Eustum could have no 
idea his son was in existence. The mother of Sohrab had 
written to him her child was a daughter, fearing to lose her 
darling infant if she revealed the truth; and Eustum, as 
before stated, fought under a feigned name, an usage not 
uncommon in the chivalrous combats of those days." 

Arnold treats the theme in a dignified epic style. His 
treatment has uplift and majesty, but it affects us 
perhaps less poignantly than the old Irish way of story- 
telling. Arnold's method reminds us of what his lectures 
On Translating Homer described as the method of Homer 
himself. "The translator of Homer," he says, "should 
above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities in 
his author, — that he is eminently rapid, that he is emi- 
nently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his 
thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his 
syntax and in his words ; that he is eminently plain and 
direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his 
matter and ideas ; and that finally he is eminently noble." 
One can take these points one by one — rapidity ; plain- 
ness and directness of both speech and thought ; nobility 
of manner — and trace them in almost any isolated 



MATTHEW AENOLD 515 

passage of Sohrab and Rustum. Taken together, they 
afford an all but perfect description of the merits of 
the poem, — merits characteristic of the classic rather 
than the romantic spirit. The careful metaphors are 
quite in the vein of those used in Homer and Vergil, 
and apart from these the poem has few ornaments: 
all is direct, simple, lucidly expressed; the feeling 
repressed rather than expanded, the pathos treated 
with a high simplicity. Arnold has studied his setting 
with great care and to good effect: the dress, the 
landscape, are alike true to history : but the effect is 
not that of a savage tale, such as the romanticist 
would make from these materials : we do not think of 
Rustum or of his son as half -tamed denizens of those 
wild Asiatic lands. Rather they are universal figures, 
expressing a passion and pain independent of circum- 
stance : and this note of universality, so different 
from what the romanticist would seek to give, is at 
once the strength of the poem and in a sense its 
limitation. 

As for The Forsaken Merman, it is a bit of pure 
romantic beauty, that shows Arnold swaying as far 
as he ever did away from the more classical tradi- 
tions to which he sought to maintain loyalty. The 
poem is Arnold's most successful experiment in free 
metres. 



THE FORSAKEN MERMAN. 

Come, dear children, let us away ; 
Down and away below ! 
Now my brothers call from the bay, 
Now the great winds shoreward blow, 
Now the salt tides seaward flow ; 
Now the wild white horses play, 
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. 
Children dear, let us away! 
This way, this way! 

Call her once before you go — 
Call once yet! 

In a voice that she w r ill know: 
' ' Margaret ! Margaret ! ' ' 
Children's voices should be dear 
(Call once more) to a mother's ear; 
Children's voices, wild with pain — 
Surely she will come again ! 

Call her once and come away ; 

This way, this way! 

"Mother dear, we cannot stay! 

The wild white horses foam and fret." 

Margaret! Margaret! 

516 




THE FOKSAKEN MEEMAN 517 

Come, dear children, come away down; 

Call no more ! 

One last look at the white-wall 'd town, 

And the little gray church on the windy shore; 

Then come down! 

She will not come though you call all day; 

Come away, come away ! 



Children dear, was it yesterday 
We heard the sweet bells over the bay ? 
In the caverns where we lay, 
Through the surf and through the swell, 
The far-off sound of a silver bell! 
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 
Where the winds are all asleep ; 
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, 
Where the salt weed sways in the stream, 
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round, 
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground ; 
■ Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, 
Dry their mail and bask in the brine ; 
Where great whales come sailing by, 
Sail and sail, with unshut eye, 
Bound the world for ever and aye? 
When did music come this way ? 
Children dear, was it yesterday? 



Children dear, was it yesterday 
(Call yet once) that she went away? 
Once she sate with you and me, 



518 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, 

And the youngest sate on her knee. 

She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well, 

When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. 

She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea; 

She said : "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray 

In the little gray church on the shore today. 

'Twill be Easter-time in the world — ah me ! 

And 1 lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee." 

I said : "Go up, dear heart, through the waves ; 

Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves ! " 

She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. 

Children dear, was it yesterday ? 



Children dear, were we long alone? 
' ' The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan ; 
Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say; 
Come ! " I said ; and we rose through the surf in 

the bay. 
We went up the beach, by the sandy down 
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town ; 
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was 

still, 
To the little gray church on the windy hill. 
From the church came a murmur of folk at their 

prayers, 
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. 
We climb 'd on the graves, on the stones worn with 

rains, 
And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded 

panes. 



THE FORSAKEN MEEMAN 519 

She sate by the pillar ; we saw her clear : 
; ' Margaret, hist ! come quick, we are here ! 
Dear heart, ' ' I said, l ' we are long alone ; 
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan." 
But, ah, she gave me never a look, 
For her eyes were seal 'd to the holy book ! 
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. 
Come away, children, call no more! 
Come away, come down, call no more ! 



Down, down, down ! 

Down to the depths of the sea ! 

She sits at her wheel in the humming town, 

Singing most joyfully. 

Hark what she sings: "0 joy, joy, 

For the humming street, and the child with its toy ! 

For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well ; 

For the wheel where I spun, 

And the blessed light of the sun ! ' ' 

And so she sings her fill, 

Singing most joyfully, 

Till the spindle drops from her hand, 

And the whizzing wheel stands still. 

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, 

And over the sand at the sea ; 

And her eyes are set in a stare ; 

And anon there breaks a sigh, 

And anon there drops a tear, 

From a sorrow-clouded eye, 

And a heart sorrow-laden, 

A long, long sigh ; 



520 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden 
And the gleam of her golden hair. 



Come away, away children ; 

Come children, come down ! 

The hoarse wind blows colder; 

Lights shine in the town. 

She will start from her slumber 

When gusts shake the door; 

She will hear the winds howling, 

Will hear the waves roar. 

We shall see, while above us 

The waves roar and whirl, 

A ceiling of amber, 

A pavement of pearl. 

Singing : ' ' Here came a mortal, 

But faithless was she ! 

And alone dwell for ever 

The kings of the sea. ' ' 



But, children, at midnight, 
When soft the winds blow, 
When clear falls the moonlight, 
When spring-tides are low ; 
When sweet airs come seaward 
From heaths starr'd with broom, 
And high rocks throw mildly 
On the blanch 'd sands a gloom ; 
Up the still, glistening beaches, 
Up the creeks we will hie, 






SOHEAB AND EUSTUM 521 



Over banks of bright seaweed 

The ebb-tide leaves dry. 

"We will gaze, from the sand-hills, 

At the white, sleeping town; 

At the church on the hill-side — 

And then come back down. 

Singing: "There dwells a loved one, 

But cruel is she! 

She left lonely for ever 

The kings of the sea." 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM. 

AN EPISODE. 

And the first gray of morning fill'd the east, 

And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream. 

But all the Tartar camp along the stream 

Was hush 'd, and still the men were plung 'd in sleep ; 

Sohrab alone, he slept not ; all night long 

He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed. 

But when the gray dawn stole into his tent, 

He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, 

And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent, 

And went abroad into the cold wet fog, 

Through the dim camp, to Peran-Wisa's tent. 

Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which 
stood 
Clustering like beehives on the low flat strand 



522 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Of Oxus, where the summer-floods overflow 
When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere : 
Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low 

strand, 
And to a hillock came, a little back 
From the stream's brink; the spot where first 

boat, 
Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. 
The men of former times had crown 'd the top 
"With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now 
The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, 
A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread. 
And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood 
Upon the thick-pil'd carpets in the tent, 
And found the old man sleeping on his bed 
Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms. 
And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step 
Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man 

sleep ; 
And he rose quickly on one arm, and said : — 

"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. 
Speak ! is there news, or any night alarm ? ' ' 

But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said : — 
i ' Thou know 'st me, Peran-Wisa ! it is I. 
The sun is not yet risen, and the foe 
Sleep, but I sleep not ; all night long I lie 
Tossing and wakeful; and I come to thee. 
For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek 
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, 
In Samarcand, before the army march 'd; 
And I will tell thee what my heart desires. 
Thou know'st if, since Ader-baijan first 



SOHBAB AND EUSTUM 523 

I came among the Tartars and bore arms, 

I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, 
45 At my boy's years, the courage of a man. 

This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on 

The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, 

And beat the Persians back on every field, 

I seek one man, One man, and one alone : 
so Eustum, my father ; who I hop'd should greet, 

Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field, 

His not unworthy, not inglorious son. 

So I long hop'd, but him I never find. 

Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask ! 
55 Let the two armies rest to-day : but I 

Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords 

To meet me, man to man ; if I prevail, 

Eustum will surely hear it : if I fall — 

Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. 
60 Dim is the rumour of a common fight 

Where host meets host, and many names are sunk ; 

But of a single combat fame speaks clear." 
He spoke ; and Peran-Wisa took the hand 

Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said : — 
"0 Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine ! 

Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, 

And share the battle's common chance with us 

Who love thee, but must press for ever first, 

In single fight incurring single risk, 
70 To find a father thou hast never seen ? 

That were far best, my son, to stay with us 

Unmurmuring : in our tents, while it is war, 

And when 't is truce, then in Afrasiab's towns. 

But, if this one desire indeed rules all, 



524 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

75 To seek out Eustum, seek him not through fight ! 
Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, 
Sohrab ! carry an unwounded son ! 
But far hence seek him, for he is not here. 
For now it is not as when I was young, 

80 When Eustum was in front of every fray ; 
But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, 
In Seistan, with Zal, his father old, 
Whether that his own mighty strength at last 
Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age, 

85 Or in some quarrel with the Persian King. 
There go ! — Thou wilt not ? Yet my heart forebodes 
Danger or death awaits thee on this field. 
Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost 
To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace 

90 To seek thy father, not seek single fights 
In vain. But who can keep the lion's cub 
From ravening, and who govern Eustum's son ? 
Go : I will grant thee what thy heart desires." 
So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left 

95 His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay ; 
And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat 
He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet, 
And threw a white cloak round him, and he took 
In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword ; 

loo And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, 
Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul ; 
And rais'd the curtain of his tent, and call'd 
His herald to his side, and went abroad. 

The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog 

10 i From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. 
And from their tents the Tartar horsemen fil'd 



SOHRAB ANL> EUSTUM 525 

Into the open plain ; so Haman bade : 

Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa rul'd 

The host, and still was in his lusty prime. 
HO From their black tents, long files of horse, they streamed ; 

As when some grey November morn the files, 

In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes 

Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes 

Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries, 
115 Or some frore Caspian reed-bed, southward bound 

For the warm Persian sea-board : so they streamed. 

The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard, 

First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears ; 

Large men, large steeds, who from Bokhara come 
120 And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares. 

Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south, 

The Tukas, and the lances of Salore, 

And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands ; 

Light men and on light steeds, who only drink 
125 The acrid milk of camels, and their wells. 

And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came 

From far, and a more doubtful service own'd ; 

The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks 

Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards 
130 And close-set skull-caps ; and those wilder hordes 

Who roam o'er Kipchak and the northern waste ; 

Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks, tribes who stray 

Nearest the Pole ; and wandering Kirghizzes, 

Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere : — 
135 These all fil'd out from camp into the plain. 

And on the other side the Persians f orm'd : 

First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seemed, 

The Ilyats of Khorassan ; and behind, 



526 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, 

140 MarshalPd battalions bright in burnished steel. 
But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, 
Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, 
And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. 
And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw 

145 That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back, 
He took his spear, and to the front he came, 
And check' d his ranks, and fiVd them where they stood. 
And the old Tartar came upon the sand 
Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said: — 

150 "Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear! 
Let there be truce between the hosts to-day, 
But choose a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man." 
As, in the country, on a morn in June, 

155 When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 
A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy, 
So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, 
A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran 
Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they lov'd. 

160 But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool, 
Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, 
That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow; 
Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass 
Long flocks of traveling birds dead on the snow, 

165 Chok'd by the air, and scarce can they themselves 
Slake their parched throats with sugared mulberries; 
In single file they move, and stop their breath, 
For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows, 
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. 

170 And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up 



SOHEAB AND EUSTUM 527 

To counsel; Gudurz and Zoarrah came, 

And Feraburz, who rul'd the Persian host 

Second, and was the uncle of the King; 

These came and counselled, and then Gudurz said : — 

"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, 
Yet champion have we none to match this youth. 
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart. 
But Eustum came last night; aloof he sits 
And sullen, and has pitched his tents apart. 
Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 
The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name : 
Haply will he forget his wrath, and fight. 
Stand forth the while,- and take their challenge up." 

So spake he ; and Ferood stood forth and cried : — 
"Old man. be it agreed as thou hast said ! 
Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man." 

He spake: and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode 
Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. 
But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, 
And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd, 
Out on the sands beyond it, Eustum's tents. 
Of scarlet cloth they were, and glittering gay, 
Just pitch'd ; the high pavilion in the midst 
Was Eustum's, and his men lay camp'd around. 
And Gudurz enter'd Eustum's tent, and found 
Eustum ; his morning meal was done, but still 
The table stood before him, charg'd with food: 
A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread, 
And dark green melons ; and there Eustum sate 
Listless, and held a falcon on his wrist, 
And play'd with it ; but Gudurz came and stood 
Before him ; and he look'd, and saw him stand, 



528 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 






And with a cry sprang rip and dropped the bird, 
And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said : — 

205 "Welcome ! these eyes could see no better sight. 
What news ? but sit down first, and eat and drink." 

But Gudurz stood in the tent-door, and said :— 
"Not now ! a time will come to eat and drink, 
But not to-day: to-day has other needs. 

210 The armies are drawn out, and stand and gaze ; 
For from the Tartars is a challenge brought 
To pick a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight their champion, and thou know'st his name : 
Sohrab men call him, but his birth is -hid. 

215 Eustum, like thy might is this young man's ! 
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart ; 
And he is young, and Iran's chiefs are old, 
Or else too weak ; and all eyes turn to thee. 
Come down and help us, Eustum, or we lose !" 

220 He spoke ; but Eustum answer'd with a smile : — 
"Go to ! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I 
Am older ; if the young are weak, the King 
Errs strangely : for the King, for Kai Khosroo, 
Himself is young, and honours younger men, 

225 And lets the aged moulder to their graves. 
Eustum he loves no more, but loves the young : 
The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I. 
For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame? 
For would that I myself had such a son, 

230 And not that one slight helpless girl I have : 
A son so f am'd^ so brave, to send to war, 
And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal, 
My father, whom the robber Afghans vex, 
And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, 



SOHEAB AND KUSTUM 529 

(M And he has none to guard his weak old age. 
There would I go, and hang my armour up, 
And with my great name fence that weak old man, 
And spend the goodly treasures I have got, 
And rest my age, and hear of Sohrat/s fame, 
W And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, 
And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more." 

He spoke, and smil'd ; and Gudurz made reply : — 
"What then, Eustum, will men say to this, 
When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks 

KI5 Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, 
Hidest thy face ? Take heed lest men should say : 
Like some old miser, Rustum hoards Ms fame, 
And shuns to peril it with younger men/' 

And, greatly mov'd, then Eustum made reply: — 

K "0 Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words ? 
Thou knowest better words than this to say. 
What is one more, one less, obscure or f anrd, 
Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? 
Are not they mortal, am not I myself ? 

&55 But who for men of nought would do great deeds ? 
Come, thou shalt see how Eustum hoards his fame ! 
But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms ; 
Let not men say of Eustum, he was matched 
In single fight with any mortal man." 

2K He spoke, and frown'd ; and Gudurz turn'd, and ran 
Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy : 
Fear at his wrath, but joy that Eustum came. 
But Eustum strode to his tent-door, and calPd 
His followers in, and bade them bring his arms, 

265 And clad himself in steel ; the arms he chose 
Were plain, and on his shield was no device, 



530 SHORTEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold, 
And, from the Anted spine atop, a plnme 
Of horsehair wav'd, a scarlet horsehair plnme. 

170 So arm'd, he issned forth; and Euksh, his horse, 
Followed him like a faithful hound, at heel, 
Euksh, whose renown was nois'd through all the earth : 
The horse, whom Eustum on a foray once 
Did in Bokhara by the river find 

275 A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, 
And rear'd him : a bright bay, with lofty crest, 
Dight with a saddle-cloth of broider'd green 
Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd 
All beasts of chase, all beasts which hunters know. 

280 So followed, Eustum left his tents, and cross'd 
The camp, and to the Persian host appeared. 
And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts 
Hail'd; but the Tartars knew not who he was. 
And dear as the wet diver to the eyes 

285 Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, 
By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, 
Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, 
Having made up his tale of precious pearls, 
Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands: 

290 So dear, to the pale Persians Eustum came. 
And Eustum to the Persian front advanced, 
And Sohrab arm'd in Hainan's tent, and came. 
And as afield the reapers cut a swath 
Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, 

*95 And on each side are squares of standing corn, 
And in the midst a stubble, short and bare; 
So on each side were squares of men, with spears 
Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 531 

And Eustum came upon the sand, and cast 

DO His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 
Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. 

As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, 
Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge 
Who with numb blackened fingers makes her fire 

)5 At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn, 
When the frost flowers the whiten'd window-panes, 
And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts 
Of that poor drudge may be ; so Eustum eyed 
The unknown adventurous youth, who from afar 

to Came seeking Eustum, and defying forth 
All the most valiant chiefs : long he perus'd 
His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was. 
For very young he seem'd, tenderly reared ; 
Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, 

.5 Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 
Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, 
By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound: 
So slender Sohrab seem'd, so softly rear'd. 
And a deep pity enter'd Eustum's soul 

;o As he beheld him coming • and he stood, 
And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said: — 
"0 thou young man, the air of heaven is soft, 
And warm, and pleasant ; but the grave is cold ! 
Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. 

5 Behold me : I am vast, and clad in iron, 
And tried ; and I have stood on many a field 
Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe : 
Never was that field lost, or that foe sav'd. 
Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death? 

o Be govern'd ! quit the Tartar host, and come 



532 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

To Iran, and be as my son to me, 
And fight beneath, my banner till I die ! , 
There a*re no youths in Iran brave as thou." 
So he spake, mildly ; Sohrab heard his voice, 

335 The mighty voice of Eustum, and he saw 
His giant figure planted on the sand, 
Sole, like some single tower, which a chief 
Hath builded on the waste in former years 
Against the robbers; and he saw that head, 

340 Streak'd with its first grey hairs : hope filled his soul, 
And he ran forward and embraced his knees, 
And clasped his hand within his own, and said : — 

"Oh, by thy f ather's head ! by thine own soul ! 
Art thou not Eustum ? speak ! art thou not he ?" 

345 But Eustum eyed askance the kneeling youth, 
And turned away, and spake to his own soul :— 

"Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean ! 
False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys. 
For if I now confess this thing he asks, 

350 And hide it not, but say: Eustum is here! 
He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes, 
But he will find some pretext not to fight, 
And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts, 
A belt or sword, perhaps, and go his way. 

355 And on a feast-tide, in Af rasiab's hall, 
In Samarcand, he will arise and cry : 
'I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd 
Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords 
To cope with me in single fight; but they 

360 Shrank, only Eustum darM : then he and I 
Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away/ 
So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud. 



SOHEAB AND KUSTUM 533 

Then were the chiefs of Iran sham'd through me." 
And then he turned, and sternly spake aloud : — 
365 "Eise ! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus 

Of Eustum ? I am here, whom thou hast call'd 

By challenge forth : make good thy vaunt, or yield ! 

Is it with Eustum only thou wouldst fight? 

Eash boy, men look on Eustum's face and flee ! 
370 For well I know, that did great Eustum stand 

Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, 

There would be then no talk of fighting more. 

But being what I am, I tell thee this : 

Do thou record it in thine inmost soul : 
375 Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield, 

Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds 

Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods, 

Oxus in summer, wash them all away." 

He spoke ; and Sohrab answered, on his feet : — 
380 "Art thou so fierce ? Thou wilt not fright me so ! 

I am no girl, to be made pale by words. 

Yet this thou hast said well, did Eustum stand 

Here on this field, there were no fighting then. 

But Eustum is far hence, and we stand here. 

Begin ! thou art more vast, more dread than I, 

And thou art prov'd, I know, and I am young : 

But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven. 

And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure 

Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know ; 

For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, 

Pois'd on the top of a huge wave of fatej 

Which hangs, uncertain to which side to fan.' 

And whether it will heave us up to land, 

Or whether it will roll us out to sea, 



534 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

895 Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death/ 
We know not, and no search will make ns know : 
Only the event will teach us, in its hour." 

He spoke, and Rustum answered not, hut hurFd 
His spear : down from the shoulder, down it came, 

400 As on some partridge in the corn, a hawk 
That long has towered in the airy clouds, 
Drops like a plummet : Sohrab saw it come, 
And sprang aside, quick as a flash ; the spear 
Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand, 

405 Which it sent flying wide; then Sohrab threw 

In turn, and full struck ; Rustum's shield sharp rang, 
The iron plates rang sharp, but turn'd the spear. 
And Rustum seiz ; d his club, which none but he 
Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge, 

410 Still rough : like those which men in treeless plains, 
To build them boats, fish from the flooded rivers, 
Hyphasis or Hydaspes, when, high up 
By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time 
Hath made in Himalayan forests wrack, 

415 And strewn the channels with torn boughs ; so huge 
The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck 
One stroke ; but again Sohrab sprang aside, 
Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came 
Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rust-urn's hand. 

420 And Rustum followed his own blow, and fell 

To his knees, and with his fingers clutched the sand ; 
And now might Sohrab have unsheath'd his sword, 
And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay 
Dizzy, and on his knees, and chok'd with sand: 

425 But he look'd on, and smil'd, nor bar'd his sword, 






SOHRAB AND BUSTUM 535 



But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said : — 
"Thou strik'st too hard ! that club of thine will float 

Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones. 

But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; 
30 No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. 

Thou say'st thou art not Bustum : be it so ! 

\ i ho art thou then, that canst so touch my soul ? 

Boy as I am, I have seen battles too ; 

Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, 
35 And heard their hollow roar of dying men ; 

But never was my heart thus touched before. 

Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart? 

thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven ! 

Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, 
40 And make a truce, and sit upon this sand, 

And pledge each other in red wine, like friends ; 

And thou shalt talk to me of Bustum's deeds. 

There are enough foes in the Persian host, 

Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang ; 
145 Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou 

Mayst fight : fight them, when they confront thy spear ! 

But oh, let there be peace ? twixt thee and me !" 
He ceas'd, but while he spake, Bustum had risen 

And stood erect, trembling with rage ; his club 
150 He left to lie, but had regained his spear, 

Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand 

Blaz'd bright and baleful, like that autumn-star, 

The baleful signs of fevers ; dust had soiFd 

His stately crest, and dimmed his glittering arms. 
455 His breast heav'd, his lips foamed, and twice his voice 

Was chok'd with rage ; at last these words broke way : — 
"Girl ! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands ! 



536 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

Cur I'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words ! 
Fight : let me hear thy hateful voice no more. 

*60 Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now 

With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance ; 
But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance 
Of battle, and with me, who make no play 
Of war : I fight it out, and hand to hand. 

465 Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine ! 
Kemember all thy valour; try thy feints 
And cunning ! All the pity I had is gone : 
Because thou hast shamed me, before both the hosts 
With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles." 

470 He spoke; and Sohrab kindled at his taunts, 
And he too drew his sword : at once they rush'd 
Together, as two eagles on one prey 
Come rushing down together from the clouds, 
One from the east, one from the west : their shields 

475 Dash'd with a clang together, and a din 
Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters 
Make often in the forest's heart at morn, 
Of hewing axes, crashing trees : such blows 
Eustum and Sohrab on each other haird. 

480 And you would say that sun and stars took part 
In that unnatural conflict; for a cloud 
Grew suddenly in heaven, and dark'd the sun 
Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose 
Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain, 

*S5 And in a sandy whirlwind wrapp'd the pair. 

In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone; 
For both the on-looking hosts on either hand 
Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure, 
And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream. 



SOHEAB AND EUSTUM 537 

joo But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes 
And labouring breath ; first Eustum struck the shield 
Which Sohrab held stiff out : the steel-spik'd spear 
Eent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin, 
And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan. 

95 Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum' s helm, 

. Nor clove its steel quite through ; but all the crest 
He shore away, and that proud horsehair plume, 
Never till now defil'd, sank to the dust; 
And Rustum bow'd his head; but then the gloom 

oo Grew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air, 
And lightnings rent the cloud ; and Ruksh, the horse, 
Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry : 
No horse's cry was that, most like the roar 
Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day 

05 Hath trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side, 
And comes, at night, to die upon the sand. 
The two hosts heard that cry, and quak'd for fear, 
And Oxus curdled as it cross'd his stream. 
But Sohrab heard, and quail' d not, but rush'd on, 

10 And struck again ; and again Rustum bow'd 
His head ; but this time all the blade, like glass, 
Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm, 
And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone. 
Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes 

15 Glar'd, and he shook on high his menacing spear, 
And shouted : Eustum ! — Sohrab heard that shout, 
And shrank amaz'd ; back he recoil'd one step, 
And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form; 
And then he stood bewilder'd ; and he dropp'd 

»20 His covering shield, and the spear pierc'd his side. 
He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground; 



538 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

And then the gloom dispersed., and the wind fell, 
And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all 
The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair: 

525 Saw Eustum standing, safe upon his feet, 
And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand. 

Then, with a bitter smile, Eustum began : — 
"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill 
A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse, 

530 And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent, 

Or else that the great Eustum would come down 
Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move 
His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. 
And then that all the Tartar host would praise 

535 Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 
To glad thy father in his weak old age. 
Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! 
Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be 
Than to thy friends, and to thy father old." 

540 And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied: — 
"Unknown thou art : yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. 
Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man ! 
No : Eustum slays me, and this filial heart. 
For were I matched with ten such men as thee, 

545 And I were that which till to-day I was, 
They should be lying here, I standing there. 
But that beloved name unnerv'd my arm : 
That name, and something, I confess, in thee, 
Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield 

550 Fall ; and thy spear transfixed an unarm'd foe. 
And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate. 

v But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear : 
The mighty Eustum shall avenge my death, 



SOHEAE AND EUSTUM 539 

My father, whom I seek through all the world ! 
55 He shall avenge nry death, and punish thee." 
As when some hunter in the spring hath found 

A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, 

Upon the craggy isle of a, hill-lake, 

And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, 
60 And followed her, to find her where she fell 

Far off ; — anon her mate comes winging back 

From hunting, and a great way off descries 

His huddling young left sole ; at that, he checks 

His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps 
65 Circles above his eyry, with loud screams 

Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she 

Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, 

In some far stony gorge out of his ken, 

A heap of fluttering feathers : never more 
70 Shall the lake glass her, flying over it; 

JSTever the black and dripping precipices 

Echo her stormy scream as she sails by : 

As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, 

So Eustum knew not his own loss, but stood 
75 Over his dying son, and knew him not. 

But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said :— 

"What prate is this of fathers and revenge? 

The mighty Eustum never had a son." 

And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied : — 
580 "Ah yes, he had ; and that lost son am I. 

Surely the news will one day reach his ear, 

Eeach Eustum, where he sits, and tarries long, 

Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here; 

And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap 
585 To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. 



540 



SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 



Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son ! 

What will that grief, what will that vengeance be ? 

Oh, could I live till I that grief had seen ! 

Yet him I pity not so much, but her, 
590 My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells 

With that old King, her father, who grows grey 

With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. 

Her most I pity, who no more will see 

Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, 
595 With spoils and honour, when the war is done. 

But a dark rumour will be bruited up, 

From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear : 

And then will that defenceless woman learn 

That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, 
600 But that in battle with a nameless foe, 

By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." 

He spoke ; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, 

Thinking of her he left, and his own death. 

He spoke ; but Eustum listened, plung'd in thought, 
605 Nor did he yet believe it was his son 

Who spoke, although he calPd back names he knew ; 

For he had had sure tidings that the babe, 

Which was in Ader-baijan born to him, 

Had been a puny girl, no boy at all : 
610 So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 

Eustum should seek the boy, to train in arms. 

And so he deemed that either Sohrab took, 

By a false boast, the style of Bustunr's son ; 

Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. 
615 So deem'd he; yet he listened, plung'd in thought. 

And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide 

Of the bright rocking ocean sets to shore 



SOHEAB AND EUSTUM 541 

At the full moon ; tears gathered in his eyes ; 
For he remembered his own early youth, 

20 And all its bounding rapture ; as, at dawn, 
The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries 
A far bright city, smitten by the sun, 
Through many rolling clouds, so Bustum saw 
His youth ; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom ; 

i25 And that old King, her father, who lov'd well 
His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child 
With joy ; and all the pleasant life they led, 
They three, in that long-distant summer-time: 
The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt 

530 And hound, and morn on those delightful hills 
In Ader-baijan. And he saw that youth, 
Of age and looks to be his own dear son, 
Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand, 
Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe 

335 Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, 
Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, 
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, 
On the mown, dying grass : so Sohrab lay, 
Lovely in death, upon the common sand. 

640 And Eustum gaz'd on him with grief, and said : — 
"0 Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son 
Whom Eustum, wert thou his, might well have lov'd. 
Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men 
Have told thee false : thou art not Eustum's son, 

645 For Eustum had no son ; one child he had, 
But one : a girl who with her mother now 
Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us; 
Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war." 
But Sohrab answer' d him in wrath; for now 



542 SHOETEK ENGLISH POEMS 

650 The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce, 
And he desired to draw forth the steel, 
And let the blood flow free, and so to die ; 
But first he would convince his stubborn foe. 
And, rising sternly on one arm, he said: — 

655 "Man, who art thou who dost deny my words ? 
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men ; 
And falsehood, while I liv'd, was far from mine. 
I tell thee, pricked upon this arm I bear 
That seal which Eustum to my mother gave, 

660 That she might prick it on the babe she bore." 

He spoke ; and all the blood left Eustum's cheeks, 
And his knees totter' d, and he smote his hand 
Against his breast, his heavy-mailed hand, 
That the hard iron corslet clank'd aloud; 

665 And to his heart he press'd the other hand, 
And in a hollow voice he spake, and said :- — 

"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie ! 
If thou show this, then art thou Eustum's son." 
Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed 

670 His belt, and near the shoulder bar'd his arm, 
And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points 
Prick'd: as a cunning workman, in Pekin, 
Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, 
An emperor's gift; at early morn he paints, 

675 And all day long ; and, when night comes, the lamp 
Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands : 
So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd 
On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Eustum's seal, 
It was that griffin, which of old rear'd Zal, 

m Eustum's great father, whom they left to die, 
A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks ; 



SOHKAB AND EUSTUM 543 

Him that kind creature found, and rear'd, and lov'd : 
Then Eustum took it for his glorious sign. 
And Sohrab bar'd that image on his arm, 
85 And himself scanned it long with mournful eyes, 
And then he touch' d it with his hand, and said : — 

"How say'st thou ? Is that sign the proper sign 
Of Eustum' s son, or of some other man's?" 

He spoke; but Eustum gaz'd, and gaz'd, and stood 
90 Speechless ; and then he utter'd one sharp cry : 

toy — thy father! and his voice chok'd there. 
And then a dark cloud passed before his eyes, 
And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. 
But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast 

95 His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips, 
And with fond faltering fingers strok'd his cheeks, 
Trying to call him back to life ; and life 
Came back to Eustum: and he op'd his eyes, 
And they stood wide with horror; and he seiz'd 

00 In both his hands the dust which lay around, 
And threw it on his head, and smirched his hair, 
His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms ; 
And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, 
And his sobs chok'd him ; and he clutch'd his sword, 

' 05 To draw it, and forever let life out. 

But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, 
And with a soothing voice he spake, and said : — 

"Father, forbear ! for I but meet to-day 
The doom which at my birth was written down 

uo In Heaven; and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand. 
Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, 
When first I saw thee ; and thy heart spoke too, 

1 know it : but fate trod those promptings down 



544 SHORTER ENGLISH POEMS 

Under its iron heel ; fate, fate engag'd 

715 The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear. 
But let us speak no more of this : I find 
My father ; let me feel that I have found ! 
Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take 
My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, 

720 And wash them with thy tears, and say : My son ! 
Quick ! quick ! for number'd are my sands of life, 
And swift; for Kke the lightning to this field 
I came, and like the wind I go away: 
Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind. 

725 But it was writ in Heaven that this should be." 
So said he, and his voice released the heart 
Of Eustum, and his tears broke forth : he cast 
His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, 
And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts, 

730 When they saw Eustum's grief ; and Euksh, the horse, 
With his head bowing to the ground, and mane 
Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe 
First to the one, then to the other, mov'd 
His head, as if inquiring what their grief 

735 Might mean ; and from his dark compassionate eyes, 
The big warm tears roll'd down, and cak'd the sand. 
But Eustum chid him with stern voice, and said : — 
"Euksh, now thou grievest; but Euksh, thy feet 
Should first have rotted on their nimble joints, 

740 Or e'er they brought thy master to this field !" 
But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said : — 
"Is this, then, Euksh ? How often, in past days, 
My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, 
My terrible father's terrible horse ! and said 

745 That I should one day find thy lord and thee. 



SOHKAB AND EUSTUM 545 

Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane ! 

Euksh, thou art more fortunate than I : 

For thou hast gone where I shall never go, 

And snuff d the breezes of my father's home. 
And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 

And seen the Eiver of Helmund, and the Lake 

Of Zirrah ; and the aged Zal "himself 

Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, 
j Corn in a golden platter, soaked with wine, 
5 And said: Ruksli, tear Bustum well! — but I 

Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face, 
| Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, 

Nor slak'd my thirst at the clear Helmund stream ; 
! But lodg'd among my father's foes, and seen 
'OAfrasiab's cities only: Samarcand, 

Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, 

And the black Toorkmun tents ; and only drunk 

The desert rivers : Moorghab and Tejend, 

Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, 
s The northern Sir ; and this great Oxus stream, 

The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die." 

Then, with a heavy groan, Eustum bewaiPd : — 

"Oh, that its waves were flowing over me ! 

Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt 
W Eoll tumbling in the current o'er my head !" 

But, with a grave, mild voice, Sohrab replied : — 

"Desire not that, my father ! thou must live : 

For some are born to do great deeds, and live, 

As some are born to be obscured, and die. 
J* Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, 

And reap a second glory in thine age : 

Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. 



546 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

But come : thou seest this great host of men 

Which follow me ; I pray thee, slay not these ! 
780 Let me entreat for them : what have they done ? 

They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star. 

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. 

But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, 

But carry me with thee to Seistan, 
785 And place me on a bed, and mourn for me ; 

Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy friends. 

And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, 

And heap a stately mound above my bones, 

And plant a far-seen pillar over all, 
790 That so the passing horseman on the waste 

May see my tomb a great way off, and cry : 

Bohrdb, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there, 

Whom his great father did in ignorance Mil! 

And I be not forgotten in my grave." 
795 And, with a mournful voice, Eustum replied :— 

"Fear not ! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, 

So shall it be : for I will burn my tents, 

And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, 

And carry thee away to Seistan, 
S00 And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, 

With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. 

And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, 

And heap a stately mound above thy bones, 

And plant a far-seen pillar over all, 
805 And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 

And I will spare thy host ; yea, let them go : 

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. 

What should I do with slaying any more? 

For would that all that I have ever slain 



SOHKAB AND EUSTUM 547 

810 Might be once more alive : my bitterest foes, 
And they who were called champions in their time, 
And through whose death I won that fame I have ! 
And I were nothing but a common man, 
A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, 

815 So thou might est live too, my son, my son ! 
Or rather would that I, even I myself, 
Might now be lying on this bloody sand, 
Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, 
Not thou of mine ! and I might die, not thou, 

820 And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 

And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine, 
And say: son, I weep thee not too sore, 
For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end! 
But now in blood and battles was my youth, 

825 And full of blood and battles is my age ; 
And I shall never end this life of blood." 

Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied : — 
"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man ! 
But thou shalt yet have peace ; only not now, 

830 Not yet : but thou shalt have it on that day, 
When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, 
Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, 
Eeturning home over the salt blue sea, 
From laying thy dear master in his grave." 

835 And Eustum gaz'd in SohraVs face, and said: — 
"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea ! 
Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure." 

He spoke ; and Sohrab smil'd on him, and took 
The spear, and drew it from his side, and eas'd 

840 His wound's imperious anguish ; but the blood 
Came welling from the open gash, and life 



548 SHOKTEB ENGLISH POFMS 

Fiow'd with the stream ; all down his cold white side 
The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, 
Like the soil'd tissue of white violets 

845 Left, freshly gathered, on their native bank, 
By children whom their nurses call with haste 
Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low, 
His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay, 
White, with eyes closed ; only when heavy gasps, 

850 Deep heavy gasps, quivering through all his frame, 
Convuls'd him back to life, he open'd them, 
And fix'd them feebly on his father's face; 
Till now all strength was ebb'd : and from his limbs 
Unwillingly the spirit fled away, 

855 Eegretting the warm mansion which it left, 

And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. 

So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead: 
And the great Eustum drew his horseman's cloak 
Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. 

860 As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd 
By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear 
Llis house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps 
Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side:, 
So, in the sand, lay Eustum by his son. 

865 And night came down over the solemn waste, 
And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, 
And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night, 
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, 
As of a great assembly loos'd, and fires 

870 Began to twinkle through the fog ; for now 

Both armies mov'd to camp, and took their meal : 
The Persians took it on the open sands 
Southward, the Tartars by the river marge : 



SOHEAB AND EUSTUM 549 

And Eustum and his son were left alone. 

875 But the majestic river floated on, 

Out of the mist and hum of that low land, 
Into the frosty starlight, and there mov'd, 
Eejoicing, through the husrr'd Chorasmian waste, 
Under the solitary moon : he flowed 

880 Eight for the polar star, past Orgunje, 

Brimming, and bright, and large ; then sands begin 
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, 
And split his currents, that for many a league 
The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along 

885 Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles ; 
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had 
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, 
A f oiFd circuitous wanderer : till at last 
The long ; d-for dash of waves is heard, and wide 

890 His luminous home of waters opens, bright 

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath'd stars 
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. 

SOHEAB AND EUSTUM 

NOTES. 

Line 1. And: The poem begins with a conjunction in order to 
give the epic tone by suggesting that this story is only an episode 
in an action of larger scope. 

2. The Oxus stream: The Oxus is for 680 miles the boundary 
between Afghanistan and Russia. It rises in the Pamir mountains 
and flows in a general northwesterly direction into the Aral Sea. 
It is "an imposing stream, rarely less than a thousand yards wide., 
and in some places fully a mile across." 

11. Peran-Wisa is a famous figure in the Persian Epic : an aged 
sage, prime-minister to his monarch, filling something the place that 
Nestor fills in the Iliad. 

12. Through the black Tartar tents: Throughout the poem, 
Arnold works up his local color carefully. It is that of the wild, 
half-civilized life of the tribes in Central Asia, where even today 
conditions are almost as primitive as in Homeric times. Some 



550 SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 

critics find, however, that the Greek tone of the poem does not quite 
harmonize with the Oriental setting. 

25. Carpets: Rugs ; one of the Persian touches. 

40. Samarcand: For the numerous places mentioned in the 
poem consult the Century Atlas. 

82. Zal, his father old: The father of Rustum was always 
called Zal the Aged, because he was born with white hair. The 
story of his wooing of Rustum's mother is familiar from many a 
fairy-tale. When a youth he came one day to the foot of a high 
tower, in which sat a maiden whom he loved as soon as he saw her. 
The tower appeared inaccessible, but the maiden let down to him 
her beautiful long black hair, and he used it as a ladder and 
climbed up to her. 

Ill, etc. One of the most striking features of the poem is the 
frequency of long similes, employed by Arnold with deliberate inten- 
tion of copying the method of Homer. It will be noted that with 
few exceptions they are drawn from the life and landscape of Cen- 
tral Asia. At first, they were apparently of a more general nature. 
Arnold writes to a critical friend : "What you say concerning the 
similes looks very just on paper. I can only say that I took a 
great deal of trouble to orientalize them (The Bahrein diver" — - 
see line 284 — "was originally an ordinary fisher), because I thought 
they looked strange, and jarred, if Western." 

129. The Jaxartes: This river is more commonly known as the 
Syr Daria. It, too, flows into the Aral Sea. 

160. But as a troop: Notice how constantly Arnold puts the 
second member of the simile first. This is the Homeric custom, 
but here it becomes almost mechanical. 

Stopford Brooke does not like the similes in this poem. He says 
that Arnold, like Homer himself, seems to fetch them from other 
poems and fit them in unsuitably. And again: "They weaken the J 
passion in the poem and retard the movement." The student 
would do well to consider whether or no he agrees with the critic. 
Mr. Brooke adds an excellent account of the function which a simile 
should serve : some may think that Arnold meets his demands more 
nearly than he is willing to admit : 

"The just simile should only be introduced when the action or 
the emotion is heightened, when the moment is worthy, and when, 
as it were in a pause, men draw in their breath to think what may 
happen next, for the moment has reached intensity. The simile fills 
that pause and allows men to breathe." 

216. He has the wild stag's foot, etc. Note the force of this 
recurrent descriptive phrase. So in the classic epic, one phrase or 
epithet is reserved for each hero. 

257. But I will fight unknown: A favorite device with heroes 
alike of epic and romance. Sir Lancelot, in Malory's Morte 
d' Arthur, is especially addicted to it. 

284. See Note, line 111. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM: NOTES 551 

302. As some rich woman: This is the first simile that is of a 
purely general character. The scene might be Oriental, but the 
lines suggest nothing but London. In themselves they are vivid 
and admirable : perhaps Arnold could not bear to sacrifice them 
when he "orientalized" his similes. 

314. Like some young cypress: This, on the other hand, is in 
perfect keeping with the whole tone and atmosphere of the poem. 

447. But oh, Let there oe peace twixt thee and me: Notice 
that after the first, *all the pleadings for peace come from Sohrab. 

480. And you would say: In the following passage we gain 
an effect of supernatural awe with no real use of the supernatural. 

556. -4s when some hunter: The longest of the similes. It 
surely meets Stopf ord Brooke's requirements in one respect : the 
moment is worthy and the suspense is keen. 

634. Like some rich hyacinth: A figure from classical literature. 

671. And showed a sign: In the old story, Sohrab wears 4 
bracelet or a ring given to his mother by Rustum. The tattooed 
sign is far better, both because it is surer proof and because u 
introduces us to the griffin, who according to the legend, w^a 
foster-nurse to Zal. 

730. And Ruksh, the horse: Compare with this passage the tears 
wept by the horse of Herminius in The Battle of the Lake Regilius. 
The prototypes of both are the horses of Achilles who weep over 
the body of Patroclus, in Homer. 

742. Is this, then, Ruksh? The speeches of Sohrab after he is 
wounded make one feel his youth and boyish charm. 

799-805. The repetition increases the gravity and majesty of 
the passage, making it round like a chant or dirge. The whole 
method throughout this scene between the father and the dying 
son is that of epic, not of dramatic, poetry : the movement is 
solemn and slow, and the emotion calm despite its depth. 

827. Then, at the point of death: According to old legend, here 
followed, dying men are endowed with prophetic power. 

Firdusi places this episode about the middle of the career of 
Rustum. He has many other adventures. Among them he lives 
to fight with the son of Sohrab : but this time the identity of the 
two combatants is discovered, and they are reconciled. 

865. And night came down over the solemn waste: "The poem 
closes in a lonely beauty. The son and the father lie alone on the 
plain as night falls, between the mourning hosts, none daring to 
intrude. The dark heaven alone is their tent and their sorrow 
their shroud and we hear the deep river flowing by, the image of 
the destiny of man that bears us on, helpless, on its breast, until 
with it we find the sea." — Stopford Brooke. 

Firdusi continues his poem with a fervid description of the 
wild grief of the mother of Sohrab. Arnold's severe taste 
excluded it. 

875. But the majestic river floated on: "Below Kamish to its 



552 



SHOETEE ENGLISH POEMS 



final disappearance in the Aral Sea, the great river rolls in silent 
majesty through a vast expanse of sand and desert." — Encyclopwdia 
Britannica. 

Richard Holt Hutton says : "Arnold, after describing the tender 
farewell of Sohrab to his father, concludes with this most beautiful 
passage, in which the accomplished geographer turns the half- 
scientific, half-poetical pleasure which he always betrays in defining 
a geographical course to the purpose of providing a poetical ano- 
dyne for the pain which the tragic ending . . . has given. . . . 
Of course the intention may have been to make the flow of the 
T>xus ... a sort of parable of the unhappy Rustum's great 
career, ar.d the peace of his passing away; but nothing of this is 
so much as hinted and we should rather say that, though the course 
of a great river may be selected . . . for the vague analogy it 
presents to the chequered life of a great leader, the intention of the 
poet is simply to refresh his own mind after the spectacle of mis- 
spent heroism and clouded destiny, with the image of one of 
Nature's greater works in which there seems to be . . . the 
same loss of pristine force and grandeur, and yet a recovery of all 
the majestic volume and triumphant strength of the earlier period 
at the end." 



THE FORSAKEN MEEMAN. 

NOTE. 

The legend of a dweller in the sea, luring a mortal mate, is as 
old as ancient days of myth. Arnold was always haunted by it. 
For a very different handling of the same theme, see Hans 
Christian Andersen's lovely story of The Little Mermaid. 



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